Amtrak PORTAL Bridge Re-Labeling

The requirements of safety and signaling made railroads some of the first organizations to manage systems of unique identifiers and all their associated corner cases. Today we will explore how Amtrak is handling some of these corner cases as they replace the historic PORTAL swing bridge on the Pennsylvania Tunnel extension in the New Jersey Meadowlands.   

1910 vintage PORTAL swing bridge.

Let's first discuss names. Originally "W" cabin, PORTAL's current name emerged around the 1930's when increased use of voice-based telecommunications prompted the PRR to switch many of its interlocking identifiers from telegraph letter codes to names evocative of their local surroundings. At the time the swing bridge and its crossovers were the last interlocking station before the western portal of the North River Tunnels, thus PORTAL. In the mid-1990's Amtrak and New Jersey Transit implemented a connection between the DL&W main line and the Penn Station tunnel route immediately west of the PORTAL bridge. Branded Mid-Town Direct, this service would drastically decrease trip times compared to the 2-sear ride via Hoboken and someone came up with the name SWIFT for the new junction. 

"New" Eastbound PORTAL signal gantry over PRR era gantry.

 

Westbound gantry at SWIFT with route indicators.

The other important labeling system is for the universe of railroad tracks. It might seem straightforward to just start at 1 (or A) and advance upward, but on which side of the right of way does one start counting? What if you need to add a track on the "below" 1? I'll make a post about track numbering at some point, but in this case the PRR was forward looking and went with track #2 (eastbound) and #3 (westbound) since in 1910 it was foreseeable that traffic growth would require tracks #1 and #4 at some point in the future. When the Secaucus Transfer opened, the layout placed slower station tracks between main tracks #2 and #3. These were given letter designations with tracks A and B. PORTAL interlocking was even expanded to include switches into the western end of track A.  

1990's PORTAL extension to support new Track A with 80mph turnouts.

Fast forward to now and Amtrak is building a brand new PORTAL replacement bridge that will also replace most or all of the current PORTAL and SWIFT interlockings. However for the better part of a year both old and new bridges and tracks will be in service and keeping the names the same might result in safety critical confusion. As a result Amtrak proactively renamed the old tracks and interlockings in December, 2025 with PORTAL becoming OLD PORTAL, SWIFT becoming and OLD SWIFT, track #2 becoming track #22 and track #3 becoming #33.

It gets better because Amtrak employs a track number based labeling system for signals and interlocking appliances. This made signals like 2E and 3E into 22E and 33E. Likewise switches like #23 and #32 became #2233 and #3322. Note that lettered tracks are just assigned a number for the purposes of switch and signal labeling with 7 standing in for A, but because track A doesn't cross the bridge there was no need for it to participate in the renaming. 

The now renamed 2233 crossover and 227 turnout at SWIFT.

Like automatic signal number plates and interlocking station signs, track numbering is a fascinating topic that I will dive into at some point, but for now I'll leave things in the context of a topical news item.