Tunneling to Long Island

NEW YORK -- At least five days a week, workers filter past Track 117 on the lower concourse of Grand Central Terminal toward a busy work site sealed off and buffered from thousands of daily commuters.

Just north of the terminal, members of the Connecticut Rail Commuter Council walk carefully down one of four massive wells that will one day hold 17 escalators to carry the bulk of 80,000 Long Island Rail Road passengers to the surface from a mammoth two-level terminal to be completed later this decade, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

"It's quite amazing to see," said Rodney Chabot, a New Canaan member of the council, which represents the interests of state commuters, during a tour of the site Wednesday.

Work on the escalator wells and other parts of the $7.3 billion East Side Access Project to bring the Long Island Rail Road into Grand Central Terminal is continuing around the clock, according to officials.

While work on the part of the project under Grand Central is on schedule, complications drilling tunnels under the Sunnyside, N.Y., railyard may push the project's estimated completion date back a year to 2019.

The completion of the terminal could benefit Connecticut commuters, and is a prerequisite to long-discussed hopes of allowing Hudson, Harlem, and New Haven Line trains to travel through the Hell Gate line in the Bronx, N.Y., to Penn Station.

"Until the Long Island Rail Road is bringing some of its traffic into east Manhattan, Metro-North cannot bring trains into Penn Station," Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said. "When this is finished, we think we can make the argument they have the capacity."

After major excavation of the two-level tunnels was finished, crews more than 100 feet underground are continuing to pare away rock to establish upper- and lower-level terminals for the trains, each with four platforms.

Work to excavate tunnels began in autumn 2007, and burrowed two 22-foot-diameter tunnels capable of accommodating four tracks each.

On Wednesday afternoon, heavy machinery carried excavated rock and other materials from the tunnels out of the work site to be disposed of or sold as building material.

Connecticut Rail Commuter Council Chairman Jim Cameron, a first-time visitor to the site, said he was impressed by the amount of work being conducted without disrupting service at Grand Central Terminal.

"It's incredible to see and especially to think it is going on just feet from where hundreds of thousands of people travel each day," Cameron said.

Metro-North is conducting an environmental assessment study on the impact of running service through Hell Gate Bridge into Penn Station.

The plan also includes building new stations in Co-Op City, Parkchester and Hunts Point, along with revamping other stations, allowing Bronx residents to reverse-commute to Connecticut, according to plans.

Terri Cronin, vice chairman of the rail commuter council, said restoring Metro-North service through that corridor would not only revitalize some areas of the Bronx, but help Connecticut and New York City economically by reducing travel time to and from the Bronx and reduce traffic on Interstate 95.

"There are old stations there, but we just need to revamp them," Cronin said. "We need to continue to work with politicians to make sure that work happens when East Side Access is finished because it is something that would benefit everyone."

With major excavation of tunnels and the terminal space done, rock is being cleared mostly by drilling and some blasting, which is typically conducted when trains are out of service, Anders said.

Just next to the work elevator leading to the lower levels of the project, the names of scores of employees are arranged by which of three around-the-clock shifts they work.

"These guys work around the clock five days a week and sometimes seven days a week," said Dennis Ferrier, a safety inspector on the project.

martin.cassidy@scni.com, 203-964-2264.