Amtrak administrators updated the status of the ongoing work at Penn Station Friday and once again said they are likely to meet their Labor Day deadline.
Amtrak’s chief operating officer, Scot Naparstek, told reporters during a weekly conference call that toured the tunnels in the Northeast corridor and saw the progress.
“We continue to track a little bit ahead of schedule,” he said. “I have no reason to see why we wouldn’t finish up during the Labor Day weekend.”
The Penn Station work began in July following several infrastructure failures and service disruptions at the station this year, including three derailments since March. During this week alone, crews completed the assembly of track connections and a new switch, and installed 500 feet of third rail track on track 10, Naparstek said.
“I’m extremely pleased by the quantity of work and quality of the work,” he said. “Everything looks in very good shape.”
Next week, crews will continue to install more footage of the third rail on track 10, and begin signal testing, according to Naparstek.
He predicted that when the work concludes, Long Island Rail Road and New Jersey Transit service will be back to about “90 percent plus” on-time performance, which was the level before the work began.
The LIRR didn’t have an immediate comment about the update.
