Amtrak’s portion of federal funds will upgrade New York to Washington HSR Service

Written by jrood

The U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Amtrak $450 million in funding to upgrade its rail infrastructure to support more frequent and faster high-speed rail service and to improve reliability of current service between New York and Washington, DC. "With this investment by the Obama administration, the Amtrak vision for high-speed rail in the Northeast is now departing the station and heading down the tracks to help take America to the next generation of passenger service," said Amtrak President and CEO Joe Boardman. The funding will go toward improvements in support of the Amtrak Gateway Project, which will construct new tunnels to access an expanded New York Penn Station, enhance regional economic development and job creation and lay the foundation for the future launch of 220 mph next-generation high-speed service. Specifically, the $450 million awarded to Amtrak is for a project to upgrade electrical power, signal systems, track and overhead catenary wires between Morrisville, Pa., and New Brunswick, N.J. It also will reconfigure track switches at the western entrance to New York Penn Station to mitigate congestion issues. The anticipated completion date is in September 2017. As a result, Amtrak top speeds will increase from 135 mph to 160 mph along a 24-mile section of track. Combined with new equipment acquisition currently in the planning stages, the project supports plans to add six more Acela Express high-speed roundtrips between New York and Washington by 2018 and a total of 15 additional roundtrips by 2022. In addition to the $450 million received by Amtrak, several states were awarded a total of $345 million for other NEC-specific projects. Amtrak worked closely with its state partners along the NEC during the application process to coordinate projects in order to maximize the expected regional improvements.  

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