Amtrak crews repair benchwall system in North River Tunnel

Amtrak crews recently remediated damage to the benchwall system in the south tube of the North River Tunnel without interrupting regular train service.

The workers were able to take advantage of previously scheduled work that required weekend service outages to replace critical switches near New York Penn Station, Amtrak officials said in a press release.

The tunnel's north and south tubes are used by Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains to travel under the Hudson River between New Jersey and New York Penn Station.

Over the course of a 55-hour weekend outage in March — when more invasive work could be performed without impacting service — crews jackhammered away loose and unstable concrete from the walking surface, poured and set fresh concrete, and retrofitted a below-surface splicing chamber. Workers have also been injecting grout into the tunnel’s concrete liner to redirect infiltrating ground water and minimize the frequency of infrastructure failures like signal problems and poor track conditions.

"These interim improvements are critical to ensuring the continued safety and reliability of the North River Tunnel and improving our customers’ travel experience in and out of New York City with minimal inconvenience," said Laura Mason, Amtrak's executive vice president of capital delivery.

The work is part of a $150 million investment in interim improvements that Amtrak is making in the more than a century-old tunnel while construction of a new Hudson River Tunnel advances as part of the Gateway Program, Amtrak officials said.