Bridge in New Jersey Meadowlands
The Portal Bridge is a rail bridge over the Hackensack River in New Jersey between the cities of Kearny and Secaucus. The two-track, moveable swing-span was built by the Pennsylvania Railroad and is currently owned and operated by Amtrak. It originally opened in 1910 in conjunction with service to the newly constructed Pennsylvania Station in New York City. The 100-year-old bridge is in disrepair, limiting train speeds, and is so low that it often has to be opened to allow commercial boats underneath, causing more delays. Work to replace the bridge is underway.
Operation
The swing bridge is 961 feet long and sits on a turntable and requires millions of dollars of yearly maintenance.[1][2]
Amtrak operates some 103 scheduled trains in both directions over this segment of the Northeast Corridor between Washington, DC and New York and also to Boston. Four of NJ Transit’s rail lines (Northeast Corridor Line, North Jersey Coast Line, Morris and Essex Lines, Montclair-Boonton Line) with 393 trains each weekday in both directions use the Portal Bridge to access New York Penn Station. According to New Jersey Transit Executive Director Richard Sarles, the bridge is considered a "chokepoint" which reduces the potential speed and capacity of the line.[3][4]
The bridge's lowest beams are just 23 feet above the surface of the river, necessitating that the bridge be opened almost daily for commercial boat traffic, and causing considerable train delays. Drawbridge schedules (US Coast Guard 33 CFR 117.723) allow for Portal Draw to be exempt for opening weekdays 6am to 10am and 4 pm to 8 pm (during peak commuter travel periods over the bridge). The bridge opens on signal other times.[5]
Derailment
The bridge was site of a derailment in November 1996. Amtrak's Fast Mail Train No. 12, with twelve passenger and mail coaches pulled by two locomotives on a Washington-to-Boston run with 88 passengers and 20 crew members -- derailed as it reached the bridge. It sideswiped an oncoming passenger train, but continued across the bridge, kept from plunging through the trestles into the river by guide rails that parallel the main tracks. Then its twin locomotives, a baggage car and three passenger coaches plunged over an embankment. There were no deaths; thirty four persons were hospitalized.[6]
Replacement
In December 2008, the Federal Railroad Administration approved a $1.34 billion project to replace the Portal Bridge with two new bridges -- a three-track bridge to the north, and a two-track bridge to the south. The new bridges are scheduled to be completed in 2017, at which time the Portal Bridge will be dismantled. In 2009, New Jersey applied for $38.5 million in funding for the replacement from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.[7] On January 28 2010, the federal funds were released as a (TIGER) grant[8] The funds will go toward final design for the new bridge.[9][10][11]
Construction of the new bridge is scheduled to begin in 2010, with the complete bridge replacement to be complete by 2017. [12] In 2011, Amtrak announced its intention to build a small segment of a high speed rail corridor, of which the bridge is part, called the Gateway Project, estimated to cost $13.5 billion.[13][14][15] In April 2011, Amtrak applied for $570 million for constuction funding for its replacement.
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