PHILADELPHIA — Amtrak broke ground Friday to mark construction of its new heavy maintenance facility at Philadelphia’s Penn Coach Yard, a $462 million project slated for completion in 2027.
Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner, Federal Railroad Administration Administrator Amit Bose, and Samantha Silverberg, White House deputy assistant to the President for infrastructure, were among those on hand for the ceremony. The facility will handle life-cycle maintenance and heavy repairs, along with daily inspections, service, and cleaning. Amtrak says it will speed up the maintenance process and reduce train turnaround times thanks to more modern maintenance practices.
“This new maintenance facility is critical to upgrading the customer experience with new state-of-the-art trains, combined with our other major infrastructure projects,” Gardner said, according to an Amtrak press release. “This project and several others like it will help drive continued ridership growth and future service expansion thanks to funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and continued support from the Biden-Harris Administration, Congress, and many other partners around the country.”
Amtrak awarded a design-build contract for the facility earlier this year to Herzog Contracting Corp. [see “Amtrak awards contract …,” Trains News Wire, March 1, 2024]. The new facility will cover nearly 350,000 square feet, with a two-bay maintenance and inspection facility including inspection pits, a drop table, and fueling pads, as well as two tracks for service and cleaning.
The groundbreaking came on the same week that Amtrak awarded the construction contract for another maintenance project, expanding and upgrading its King Street Yard in Seattle [see “Amtrak awards contract for Seattle maintenance facility,” News Wire, Oct. 3, 2024].
