WASHINGTON — Amtrak has not fully developed a framework to manage its responsibilities in the $30 billion Gateway program of Northeast Corridor improvements, even though it has already begun hiring staff and setting a schedule, the Amtrak Office of the Inspector General says in a new report.
The report on the Gateway program — which most notably will include a new tunnel between New Jersey and New York’s Penn Station, along with high-profile bridge projects — notes that the infrastructure work will require Amtrak to develop skills and expertise unrelated to those required in more than 50 years of operating a national passenger railroad.
The document says that the management plan developed by Amtrak “does not identify or describe the processes the company will use to develop and execute the program so they are repeatable and consistent across projects. Without such defined processes, the company risks reaching to issues and demands as they arise instead of conducting its work in a disciplined manner” to meet schedules and budget. By building the framework now, the report says, Amtrak has a better chance to succeed with the program.
Amtrak has responded to the report by agreeing to more fully develop a framework to manage the program. The full report is available here.
No, we don’t.
Start by firing those at the top from Coscia on down and put in a new management team with real-time RAILROADING experience.
Amen to that, Mr. Dicenso. I’ve said that repeatedly on these forums. But the Biden transportation folks are sitting on their hands. Probably because they are all clueless.
Amtrak Joe, with the help of Mayor Pete, has Amtrak in an utter shamble. I suppose NEC is going al right but the remainder of Amtrak is on its death bed.
The most (or the only) pro-Amtrak United States president has Amtrak many times worse than the US president at the beginning, anti-Amtrak Richard M. Nixon.
I’ll say it again (though some of you don’t want to hear it) Joe Biden is corrupt, senile and incompetent. Those three judgments I said about him are by far the nicest I could come up with. What I really think about the man is far harsher. If you don’t want to hear this, you most certainly don’t want to hear what I really think about Amtrak Joe.
Repeat as needed: “NOTHING CAN GO WRONG, GO WRONG, GO WRONG”
Regarding the text, is that “reaching to” or “reacting to”?
It’s not as if they haven’t managed large scale infrastructure projects before…I don’t see what the problem is, just use the same framework that you used for the Penn Station trackwork, only scaled up, it’s not that difficult.
GERALD – Agree with your post. Managing a mega-project may be challenging but it can be done and has been done. Over a period of time, you hire the right staff and (mainly) the right consultants. Secondly, you cast your eyes to Sacramento, see how they’ve managed CalHSR, and do the opposite.
Every state highway department with the possible exception of tiny states like Vermont has had mega-projects in replacing freeway interchanges at multi-billion dollar costs. How do they do it? Simple. They look at how MassDOT mishandled Boston’s Big Dig and learn from it.
Boston’s Big Dig was 20 to 25 years ago, plenty of time for the various states to learn how to do it better.
Heck Amtrak itself has managed mega-projects before or at least multiple related projects, albeit a professional generation ago for the most recent– electrification of the NE corridor from New Haven to Boston. (Of course 15 to 20 years before that was the rebuilding of the main part of the NEC) My guess is most people with direct experience from those have retired and the people under them as well, thanks to early buyouts. Finally not having steady funding to continuously improve infrastructure in a big way decreases the need to contiue to have people with this experience and for those that remain make the job less rewarding.
Yep, have to agree with Charles. Do the opposite of CalHSR. Amtrak needs to go inhouse, find the right people and utilize existing expertise and be very very careful about consultants..
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To this day it is mind boggling why Cal HSR was not managed by Caltrans from the get go. Caltrans has the biggest DOT budget in US with massive amount of in house experience and years in local relationships, right of way acquisitions, real estate, working with utilities and can go on and on. Instead, Gov Brown decided to go all in a new govt agency from skratch and utterly dependent on T&M consultants who have treated CalHSR as a candy store. So as Charles say, do the opposite.