Railroad Forums 

  • East River Tunnel Sandy Rehabilitation

  • This forum will be for issues that don't belong specifically to one NYC area transit agency, but several. For instance, intra-MTA proposals or MTA-wide issues, which may involve both Metro-North Railroad (MNRR) and the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). Other intra-agency examples: through running such as the now discontinued MNRR-NJT Meadowlands special. Topics which only concern one operating agency should remain in their respective forums.
This forum will be for issues that don't belong specifically to one NYC area transit agency, but several. For instance, intra-MTA proposals or MTA-wide issues, which may involve both Metro-North Railroad (MNRR) and the Long Island Railroad (LIRR). Other intra-agency examples: through running such as the now discontinued MNRR-NJT Meadowlands special. Topics which only concern one operating agency should remain in their respective forums.

Moderators: GirlOnTheTrain, nomis, FL9AC, Jeff Smith

 #1496316  by JamesRR
 
The North River tunnels are beyond "band-aiding." They will require rebuilds considering their condition - even pre-Sandy there weren't in great shape.
The proposal is considering the non-bench wall approach for ER tunnels, but keeping bench walls in NR tunnels, from what I recently read about Amtrak's consideration.
 #1496410  by Backshophoss
 
Amtrak's North(Hudson)River tubes need to be DEMO'ed interior wise and rebuilt.like the L tunnels under the East River need to be done.
IF and WHEN the Gateway goes online,each of the ex-PRR tubes is shut down,everything DEMO'ed and removed to the cast iron outer shell
and rebuilt with new materials from scratch.
 #1496497  by jamestrains1
 
Backshophoss wrote:Amtrak's North(Hudson)River tubes need to be DEMO'ed interior wise and rebuilt.like the L tunnels under the East River need to be done.
IF and WHEN the Gateway goes online,each of the ex-PRR tubes is shut down,everything DEMO'ed and removed to the cast iron outer shell
and rebuilt with new materials from scratch.
The image below from the Hudson Tunnel Project DEIS contains cross section images of the existing and proposed North River Tunnels. This design may or may not apply to what was being planned from the rehabilitation of the damaged East River Tunnels.
HUDSON TUNNEL PROJECT
Draft Environmental Impact Statement and Draft Section 4(f) Evaluation
Chapter 2: Project Alternatives and Description of the Preferred Alternative

http://www.hudsontunnelproject.com/docu ... native.pdf
see pdf pg. 41
EXIST-NRT.PNG
EXIST-NRT.PNG (164.1 KiB) Viewed 3730 times
PROPOSED_NRT.PNG
PROPOSED_NRT.PNG (150.16 KiB) Viewed 3729 times
 #1542383  by Jeff Smith
 
https://longislandweekly.com/column-eas ... rr-riders/
Amtraks plans to delay the decades overdue major repairs to the four East River tunnels until after the LIRR begins service into Grand Central Terminal in December 2022 is bad news for both riders and taxpayers.

Delaying the start of work by six years from 2019 to 2024 will increase costs by 300 percent to $1 billion. How will Amtrak and MTA come up with an almost $600 million shortfall? Continued deterioration of the East River Tunnels over this time period could result in an increased scope of work.

Combined with responses to the procurement process from contractors, this could then result in a final price tag of several hundred million more than the current engineers’ estimate. Remember only one of four East River Tunnels can be worked on at a time. Two of four tunnels suffered significant damage from Super Storm Sandy in 2012. They may require one to two years for repair work. The remaining two tunnels will need one year each. As a result, this project may not be completed until 2030.

The Federal Transit Administration provided $432 billion in June 2016 to the MTA. These funds were intended to be spent quickly for 2012 Super Storm Sandy-related work in the East River Tunnels to bring them up to a state of good repair. Amtrak may not begin to use these funds for another 8 years, until 2024. This does no one any good.
...
 #1542384  by Jeff Smith
 
https://longislandweekly.com/column-eas ... rr-riders/
Amtraks plans to delay the decades overdue major repairs to the four East River tunnels until after the LIRR begins service into Grand Central Terminal in December 2022 is bad news for both riders and taxpayers.

Delaying the start of work by six years from 2019 to 2024 will increase costs by 300 percent to $1 billion. How will Amtrak and MTA come up with an almost $600 million shortfall? Continued deterioration of the East River Tunnels over this time period could result in an increased scope of work.

Combined with responses to the procurement process from contractors, this could then result in a final price tag of several hundred million more than the current engineers’ estimate. Remember only one of four East River Tunnels can be worked on at a time. Two of four tunnels suffered significant damage from Super Storm Sandy in 2012. They may require one to two years for repair work. The remaining two tunnels will need one year each. As a result, this project may not be completed until 2030.

The Federal Transit Administration provided $432 billion in June 2016 to the MTA. These funds were intended to be spent quickly for 2012 Super Storm Sandy-related work in the East River Tunnels to bring them up to a state of good repair. Amtrak may not begin to use these funds for another 8 years, until 2024. This does no one any good.
...
 #1542387  by Pensyfan19
 
Jeff Smith wrote: Mon May 11, 2020 1:48 pm https://longislandweekly.com/column-eas ... rr-riders/
Amtraks plans to delay the decades overdue major repairs to the four East River tunnels until after the LIRR begins service into Grand Central Terminal in December 2022 is bad news for both riders and taxpayers.

Delaying the start of work by six years from 2019 to 2024 will increase costs by 300 percent to $1 billion. How will Amtrak and MTA come up with an almost $600 million shortfall? Continued deterioration of the East River Tunnels over this time period could result in an increased scope of work.

Combined with responses to the procurement process from contractors, this could then result in a final price tag of several hundred million more than the current engineers’ estimate. Remember only one of four East River Tunnels can be worked on at a time. Two of four tunnels suffered significant damage from Super Storm Sandy in 2012. They may require one to two years for repair work. The remaining two tunnels will need one year each. As a result, this project may not be completed until 2030.

The Federal Transit Administration provided $432 billion in June 2016 to the MTA. These funds were intended to be spent quickly for 2012 Super Storm Sandy-related work in the East River Tunnels to bring them up to a state of good repair. Amtrak may not begin to use these funds for another 8 years, until 2024. This does no one any good.
...
I agree with the last sentence of this article... -_-

Also, why is Amtrak delaying this again? Is it due to them not receiving enough due to the pandemic? $1 billion is what they received and should be enough to fix one of the lifelines of their precious Northeast Corridor, which one of the only lines Amtrak really seems to care about (not counting the state-owned lines). Why can't Amtrak split the bill with LIRR, NJT, MTA Bridges and Tunnels (it is a tunnel used by the MTA after all), NY state, or... ANYONE???
 #1542407  by njtmnrrbuff
 
The East River Tunnels should have been worked on a while ago. This is the time to start with the repair process. There aren't as many trains passing through them as during better times. Eventually Metro North trains that serve the East Bronx sections along the Hellgate Line will have to pass through the East River Tunnels to get to NYP. I doubt that MNR trains will be running on the Hellgate Line before December of 2022.
 #1609332  by RandallW
 
It appears significant rehabilitation work is intentionally being delayed to allow LIRR to begin using the new GCT to avoid a real reduction in LIRR services.

I can't find (or am just failing to Google correctly today) project documentation (or even a public information page on the project). Is there one?
 #1609365  by eolesen
 
I'd agree. Not only to maintain services, but I'd think some of the same trades are needed to launch the new terminal and manage the rehab project.

Sent from my SM-G981U using Tapatalk

 #1615963  by west point
 
Has anyone heard that Amtrak is letting contract or staging equipment for the start up re habbing East river tunnel #1. Would expect that work can start after about 60 days of comfortable LIRR 's new schedules and operations working OK?