Amtrak breaks ground on a new maintenance facility in Philadelphia

PHILADELPHIA – Amtrak broke ground Friday on construction of its new heavy maintenance facility at Penn Coach Yard in Philadelphia, a $462 million project scheduled for completion in 2027.

Among those present at the ceremony were Amtrak CEO Stephen Gardner, Federal Railroad Administration Administrator Amit Bose and Samantha Silverberg, White House deputy assistant to the president for infrastructure. The facility handles lifetime maintenance and heavy repairs as well as 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 improving the customer experience with new state-of-the-art trains in combination with our other major infrastructure projects,” Gardner said, according to an Amtrak news release. “This and several similar projects will help drive continued ridership growth and future service expansion thanks to funding from the bipartisan infrastructure bill and continued support from the Biden-Harris Administration, Congress and many other partners across the country.”

Amtrak awarded a design and construction contract for the facility to Herzog Contracting Corp. earlier this year. (see “Amtrak awards contract…”, Trains News Wire, March 1, 2024). The new facility will cover nearly 350,000 square meters and feature a two-bay maintenance and inspection facility including inspection pits, a drop table and fuel stations, as well as two tracks for maintenance and cleaning.

The groundbreaking occurred the same week that Amtrak awarded the construction contract for another maintenance project to expand and modernize its King Street Yard in Seattle (see “Amtrak Awards Contract for Seattle Maintenance Facility,” News Wire, Oct. 3, 2024).