The arch is on and in place. It also seems like the jacks are being lowered again to prepare it for the third arch as the cross-bracing is being removed.
The actual camera capture won’t be updated until tomorrow but looking at the live previews, the second arch is on and seems to be slid into place. NJ Transit has hinted on social media that the third arch is going to be arriving in the not-too-distant future, so this is something I will be looking out for. On the northern side, fencing has been installed on the signal box platforms which is generally indicative that all the required infrastructure is in place.
At Coeymans, the last arch is all that remains with no noticeable site activity present.
Thanks for the great updates! What do you think will happen to Coeymans after the third arch leaves? Personally I hope it’ll be kept on-hand for when they eventually build the Portal South Bridge.
I wouldn’t be surprised if NJ Transit/Amtrak call upon them again for Portal South Bridge. The shipping company delivered the two arches so far on-time and there’s been absolutely no issues with them.
I do wonder if NJ Transit will use them for the currently stalled Raritan River Bridge replacement but absolutely nothing has happened recently (more like within the last year) with that project.
There’s been nothing I know of regarding the Portal South project and the Gateway Program site has very little information on it as well. It’s also wrong to consider it “inactive” since it wasn’t even announced to begin with. It will most likely happen but I’d assume they want to get the Hudson Tunnel and other “essential” components built first along with the removal of the original bridge to allow it to even fit. It’s also dependent on future Presidential administrations providing the funding and support for it since I don’t recall the second bridge being a part of the current money package (god forbid we get another Trump-esque president, I won’t expect to see it happening for a long time).
I don’t understand why this bridge costs almost 2 billion dollars (according to that video posted upthread. Even with the usual New York markup for any construction, that’s a crazy amount of money for a rather basic, standard bridge.
The cost, while high includes more than just the bridge (the site is around 2 miles long). There was electric pole relocation before construction commenced, the building of temporary piers for construction equipment along with the eventual removal of the old bridge when the new one is fully operational. Other work includes building retaining walls, track relocation, building new tracks, electrical work, etc. Doesn’t help that both Christie and Trump delayed the project so inflation happened and couple that with typical NY markup, and yes, the cost is going to be steep. At least this project is moving along fast and not at a glacial pace.
Anyways, here’s a video from today showing even more recent progress from a few days ago to today. You can see the second arch is put into place by the end of the video and there’s a lot of rail on site.
As I understand it the Portal South project is intended to be less intensive. It will be a new operable bridge, at the same elevation/location as the current bridge, meaning no new bridge approaches as the Portal North is having constructed.
It will not be an operable bridge. On the Gateway Program’s “other projects” page they show a picture of what it will be: a clone of the new bridge they’re building now.
There’s been quite a number of developments at Portal Bridge and the other sites.
One notable thing is the catenary pole installation on the north side continues to advance. At least 7 poles have been installed so far. More will be installed as the days progress. There’s a truck on-site with pole pieces awaiting assembly.
On the south side, the concrete underpass is nearing completion. I recently learned what this was and it will connect to the eventual Portal South bridge which will allow M&E trains to use Secaucus Junction’s Track A to go to Newark Broad Street, preventing the need for trains to cross Track B where NY-Penn bound trains go.
Equipment used to slide the arch into place is also being dismantled. This equipment likely won’t be needed for the final arch which is expected to arrive by mid-February.
At Tonnelle Avenue, there’s a bunch of pilings being installed, likely to prevent the other lane where traffic is using from collapsing. Once this is done and that remaining old strip of road is secure, I expect excavation to commence. The camera was also moved around over the past few days while work was done to replace the roof of the PRR Substation. The camera has been moved to a better position to allow for better observation of the work.
At the Hudson Yards site, the footprint of where the casing is going to be is quite noticeable and the pit is quite deep. This one’s moving at a slower pace than Tonnelle Ave and the Portal Bridge but there’s progress.
Just found this excellent drone footage of the Portal Bridge on youtube. This gives us a nice in-depth look at what’s going on from perspectives the casual onlooker can’t observe. I notice they’re already putting down the track ballast that the actual tracks sit on in some portions.
We’re now one step closer to getting new Hudson River tunnels. A joint venture comprising Frontier, Kemper, Tutor and Perini were awarded the tunnel construction contract and apparently have a strategy that can get it done nine months earlie than expected. This portion of the project will enable the TBMs to be launched as it will provide a place to insert them into the ground and removes obstructions that may impact tunnel digging.
Not anytime soon. The project that was just awarded starts tunnel digging in Manhattan and creates the shaft where they will lower the TBMs into the tunnel space. There will be at some point seperate tunnel digging on the NJ side through the palisades before the Hudson River portion is built as well, particularly due to the fact it requires a hard-rock compatible TBM while the river portion will use a TBM for softer rock digging. This portion is expected to be complete by 2027 which means I assume once Tonnelle Avenue work is done, they can launch the Palisades TBM.
NJ Transit has published an official update on the progress of the Portal Bridge. There’s some nice time lapses of the arches being jacked up. It’s quite impressive to watch how they’re able to lift heavy objects like that.
