Hill International, the global leader in managing construction risk, announced that the company has been awarded a contract by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation (Amtrak) to provide program management support services in connection with the Gateway Program. The initial three-year contract has an estimated value to Hill of approximately $10.0 million.

The Gateway Program is a proposed set of strategic rail infrastructure improvements designed to improve current services and create new capacity that will allow the doubling of passenger trains running under the Hudson River. The program will increase track, tunnel, bridge and station capacity, eventually creating four mainline tracks between Newark, N.J., and Penn Station in New York City, including a new, two-track Hudson River tunnel.

The program also includes updates to, and modernization of, existing infrastructure, such as the electrical system that supplies power to the roughly 450 weekday trains using this segment of the Northeast Corridor, and rebuilding and replacing the damaged components of the existing, century-old Hudson River tunnel, which was inundated with seawater during Super Storm Sandy.

By eliminating the bottleneck in New York and creating additional tunnel, track, and station capacity in the most congested segment of the Northeast Corridor, the Gateway Program will provide greater levels of service, increased redundancy, added reliability for shared operations, and additional capacity for future increases in commuter and intercity rail service.

“We are very excited to be involved in helping Amtrak to manage this critically-needed infrastructure program,” said John Milano, senior vice president and Northeast regional manager of Hill's Project Management Group.