The first machine is expected to begin digging after final testing, but passenger service through the new Hudson River tunnel remains years away.
NORTH BERGEN, NJ – Gateway officials said Sept. 28 that the first tunnel-boring machine for the Hudson Tunnel Project was completing final tests before beginning its trip beneath the Palisades, a construction milestone for the rail connection between New Jersey and New York.
The Gateway Development Commission’s announcement said digging was expected to begin in the coming days, with a second machine following. The announcement described preparations for launch; it did not establish that excavation by the first machine had already begun.
The machines will construct parallel passages from North Bergen to the Hudson County access shaft near the Weehawken–Hoboken border. Each will travel roughly a mile through hard rock. Gateway expects that portion of the digging to take about a year, averaging approximately 30 feet a day when maintenance time is included.
The work beneath the Palisades is one part of a larger crossing. Those machines will be removed at the access shaft, and a different pair will excavate the section beneath the Hudson River.
According to the commission’s Palisades project description, each of the two tubes will be approximately 5,100 feet long, with an inside diameter of 25 feet, 2 inches. Six cross passages will connect them. The machines install concrete lining behind the cutting equipment as they advance, and the project includes waterproofing.
Each machine’s cutterhead measures 28 feet, 8 inches across; the equipment and supporting gantries extend about 500 feet. Work on the Palisades construction package began in August 2024, with active sites in North Bergen and Weehawken.
For rail passengers, the larger purpose is a new crossing that allows rehabilitation of the existing North River Tunnel, which has been in service since 1910. The commission’s current project schedule calls for the new tunnel to enter service in 2035 and rehabilitation of the old tunnel to finish in 2038. Those are project schedules, not immediate changes to train service.
The full Hudson Tunnel Project includes nine miles of new passenger track between the two states and nearly five miles of tunnel construction. Gateway identifies the Newark–New York corridor as carrying more than 200,000 passenger trips daily.
Residents near the New Jersey construction sites can contact the project team at 1-800-444-1050 or NJConstruction@gatewayprogram.org. Construction notices and a property-damage claim form are available on the Palisades project page.