The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) has awarded a $75 million grant to New Jersey Transit (NJ Transit) for the construction of a new rail maintenance of way (MOW) facility in Clifton, N.J. The new facility will replace an obsolete and flood-prone MOW facility in Wood-Ridge, N.J. The funds are part of the FTA’s Public Transportation Emergency Relief Program.
“The new facility in Clifton will enable us to better maintain and enhance our rail infrastructure, which translates to better, more reliable service for our customers” said NJ Transit President and CEO Kevin S. Corbett. “We are grateful to the FTA for this generous $75 million grant, as we continue to modernize maintenance operations to meet the future demands of New Jersey’s growing population and the transportation needs of our customers.”
The current 70-year-old Wood-Ridge facility, located at 58 Passaic St., sustained extensive damage during Hurricane Ida in 2021 and continues to be risk prone to destructive weather events. The operations at the site include maintenance of rail MOW equipment that is used to keep the rail infrastructure in a state of good repair systemwide, rebuilding of signal relays, construction of new signal bungalows and crewing of staff that maintains NJ Transit’s Main, Bergen County and Pascack Valley Lines. In addition to the risk of flooding, NJ Transit says the existing MOW facility’s lack of expansion potential, projected future needs for more intensive MOW operations, an aging infrastructure and a need for additional space for parking and vehicle storage has demonstrated a need to relocate the MOW facility to a larger and more up to date facility.
The new facility, currently in the preliminary design phase, will be located on NJ Transit property on Kuller Road in Clifton, which is at higher elevation.
The new MOW will be an energy-efficient, state of the art facility, which will allow NJ Transit’s maintenance equipment to remain in a state of good repair.
