NEWARK, N.J. — To Amtrak operating crews, it’s a 4.5-mile-long, underutilized freight yard complex; to commuters and regional travelers, it’s an unremarked stretch of industrial New Jersey landscape. But to New Jersey Transit, this space just south of New Brunswick, N.J., will be its newest asset for maintenance and preparations for climate change.
NJ Transit’s board of directors, at its Wednesday meeting, voted to budget $370 million for a new $245 million service facility at the site, as well as $125 million for emergency storage tracks as part of continuing Hurricane Sandy remediation.
In 2012, the hurricane’s impact on NJ Transit’s main facility in Kearny, N.J., the Meadowlands Maintenance Complex, included damage to more than 300 railcars. Difficulties in the agency’s efforts to restore regular service were exacerbated by the storm surge that devastated the low-lying facility, located between the Passaic and Hackensack rivers.
The resulting search for a site on higher ground led to the 2015 selection of County Yard, next to the Northeast Corridor in New Brunswick, as well as the nearby Delco Lead.
County Yard will be used for regular operations, including overnight storage, light maintenance, and inspections, as well as under emergency conditions. Near NJ Transit’s Jersey Avenue commuter rail station, the Pennsylvania Railroad yard will reduce deadhead moves, being 30 miles closer to Newark and New York than NJ Transit’s current Morrisville facility. That, in turn, will help the agency reduce overall energy usage and associated greenhouse gas emissions.
Project construction is expected to be finished by 2021.
