Hudson Tunnel Project TBMs: design and delivery notes for tunnel engineers
Reviewed by Tom Sullivan
First reported on New Civil Engineer
30 Second Briefing
Manufacturing and factory testing of the first two tunnel boring machines for the $16bn (£13bn) Hudson Tunnel Project have been completed, preparing for excavation of new rail tubes beneath the Hudson River between New York and New Jersey from next year. The TBMs form a core element of the wider Gateway Programme to replace the existing 1910s North River Tunnels, which suffered significant saltwater damage during Hurricane Sandy. Despite previous attempts under the Trump administration to terminate federal support, funding and procurement are now sufficiently advanced for tunnelling to proceed.
Technical Brief
- Factory acceptance testing of the first two TBMs is now complete, clearing them for mobilisation.
- Both TBMs are purpose-built for the Hudson Tunnel Project alignment beneath the Hudson River.
- Completion of TBM manufacture indicates procurement for major underground works has moved from design to delivery phase.
- For similar rail river crossings, early TBM procurement is again proving critical to lock in programme certainty.
Our Take
At a projected US$16bn, the Hudson Tunnel Project sits at the very top end of our 282-item Infrastructure database, signalling that procurement and TBM logistics under the Hudson River will likely become reference cases for other mega-rail tunnels in constrained urban settings.
Using two large TBMs under the Hudson River implies complex ground treatment and settlement control beneath existing New York and New Jersey assets, which typically drives extensive pre-construction geotechnical baseline reports and strict performance regimes for contractors.
Given the long-running political scrutiny around the Gateway Programme in the United States, contractors on this project can expect unusually tight federal oversight on schedule and cost reporting compared with most other rail schemes in our recent Infrastructure coverage.
Prepared by collating external sources, AI-assisted tools, and Geomechanics.io’s proprietary mining database, then reviewed for technical accuracy & edited by our geotechnical team.
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