Why New York's North River Tunnels were cursed from the beginning - IT'S HISTORY

The North River Tunnels are a pair of rail tunnels that carry Amtrak and New Jersey Transit lines under the Hudson River between Weehawken, New Jersey, and the Pennsylvania Station in Manhattan. Constructed in 1910, the North River Tunnels is a critical travel option for commuters on the New Jersey Transit and Amtrak’s busy Northeast Corridor line. These tunnels are active, they allow 24 crossings per hour each way and operate near capacity during peak hours. The tubes run parallel to each other underneath the Hudson River. Their centers are separated by 37 feet. The two tracks fan out to 21 tracks just west of Penn Station.

Chapters:
00:00 - Why the North River Tunnels is a critical travel option for commuters
01:11- The origin of the name “North River”
02:08- Why Crossing the Hudson River proved to be an obstacle.
03:11- When Albert Gallatin, issued his report of proposed locations for transportation of national importance.
04:29- PRR & The Long Island Rail Road Company, develop the New York Tunnel Extension Project.
04:52- The North River Tunnels was awarded to O'Rourke Engineering Construction Company.
06:16- The profoundly troubling issue of “The Behavior of the Subaqueous Tunnels.”
10:17- The incorporation of additional cast-iron plates in the North River Tunnel.
11:26- The North River Tunnel Opening in 1910.
12:54- ARC program was designed to restore public transportation NYC
14:33- How Superstorm Sandy damaged the North River Tunnels
15:53- The development of The Hudson Tunnel Project, which will rehabilitate the North River Tunnel.

IT’S HISTORY - Weekly tales of American Urban Decay as presented by your host Ryan Socash.

» CONTACT

» CREDIT
Scriptwriter - Camrin Dekis,
Editor - Kamil Krawiec,
Host - Ryan Socash

» SOURCES

» NOTICE
Some images may be used for illustrative purposes only - always reflecting the accurate time frame and content. Events of factual error / mispronounced word/spelling mistakes - retractions will be published in this section.

[kennethlacewell]

The salt water soaked into the concrete, and when the water was drained, the salt stayed in the concrete. That's why they're ticking time bombs. Nothing will stop the concrete from disintegrating.

[BeyondtheRailz]

The process of redirecting water and other obstacles just to build a tunnel is astonishing.

[leadwipe]

The Tunnels were lined with Waterproof Concrete. It wasn't just ordinary Concrete. In those days, they waterproofed concrete by adding petroleum oil, water soluble soaps, clay, hydrated lime, alum, stearate of lime, and compounds of that nature. The leakages shown in the video, were not bleeding through the concrete, but through fissures in the concrete. If they didn't waterproof the concrete back in 1906, the concrete liner would have long since collapsed.

Today, they have synthetic compounds that are added to Concrete for it to be waterproof and water-resistant.

Those tunnels aren't cursed, they are Blessed. They were a magnificent Engineering accomplishment, that are carrying more traffic in their old age, than when they were in their prime. It was a great video with a poor title.

[jamesshaw]

I love how much effort they put in to building these... even delaying the opening in order to make sure it was safe... that just doesn't happen anymore.

[JMMRanMA]

I thought that "cursed" in the title was related to the number of sandhogs [a.k.a. subterranean construction workers] who died in these projects. I've heard stories about illnesses, the bends and asphyxiation, as well as abusive labor practices.

The video was, nevertheless a wonderful history of some tunnels that I used many times in the past.

[nyrmetros]

Never enough videos about the North River Tunnels! Thank you! Next we need a video about the Belmont and Steinway tunnels!

[HistoricalWonder]

Having grown up and lived in an NJ suburb just 10 miles from NYC I always marveled at all of the bridges and tunnels that connect Manhattan to Jersey and the rest of NY.

[PushingThroughThePain]

Really cool video! I live in a Midwest town, but I love trains, subways and tunnels, so this was really fun to watch. Thanks for sharing!

[martentrudeau]

Excellent description of what the North River is, and an excellent history. The North Tunnel engineering problems were enormous over a hundred years ago and probably still are today. This is a very challenging project and a very interesting video.

[SupremeLeaderKimJong-un]

Just a small correction: The tunnel begins in North Bergen, not Weehawken. It first goes under North Bergen and Union City before Weehawken and finally the river.
And an interesting fact: Neither the southern portion of the Hudson River nor the East River as a whole are rivers. The southern part of the Hudson River is a tidal estuary, which is where salt water from the ocean combines with fresh water from northern tributaries. While the East River is a tidal strait. Because of this East River fact, legally Long Island isn't recognized as an island according to the Supreme Court

[miraflynn]

Even before Sandy, I remember delays happening all the time with NJ transit trains to NYC. Fixing these is deperately necessary.

[MidnightAspec]

Rode NJT NEC through those for years. Nothing worse than darting off the 1 train only to walk into a wall of people waiting for trains that are single tracking it during rush hour.

[AverytheCubanAmerican]

It's true that many ditched the ferries in favor of the North River Tunnels. The NJ waterfront used to be dotted with rail terminals with connecting ferries to Manhattan. The opening of the North River Tunnels was the first nail in the coffin for them, the rise of the automobile was the last (all these NJ rail terminal closures put increased pressure on the tunnels to Penn Station). Of these terminals, Hoboken Terminal is the only one still in operation serving its purpose. Hoboken Terminal became the place where Edison drove the first electric multiple-unit train, as well as a filming location for Julie & Julia and Muppets Take Manhattan (where Miss Piggy was on the train as she said bye to Kermit...that was Hoboken). While the Central Railroad of NJ's Communipaw Terminal has been preserved as a part of Liberty State Park and is now used as the NJ terminal of Statue Cruises.

[richiemartinez]

A lot of people ignore the fact that the North River Tunnels are taking on more traffic on their old age than they were expected to, this has been the situation since the early 60’s. Reminder while Penn Station in NYC was built to get commuters on the PRR into NYC it also had the purpose as a supplementary station to its New Jersey Counterpart in Exchange Place. Once you get rid of all the other Rail Terminals on the Hudson on the Jersey side and route everything thru Penn Station you are going to put stress on the tunnels. Especially when you put this much more stress and traffic on the tunnels entering their 5th decade in the 60’s. It would’ve been wise to keep Exchange Place or the Communipaw Terminal for some commuter and Inter-city service instead of routing everything into the tunnels. Also removing Inter city travel from Grand Central and shifting it into Penn Station put more of a strain on Penn Stations capacity in 92, the AMTRAK services to and from Canada should have remained at Grand Central, Penn Station shouldn’t be expected to do it all.

[javianjohnson]

16:01 I like this new path. I take NJ Transit into NYC all the time, being the predominant way I get into the city. The tunnels are so important, so whatever they need to do to keep them up and running, I hope they can do it as soon as possible

[DanknDerpyGamer]

Fun fact: IF you want to see diagrams regarding the construction of Penn Station, the East River tunnels, and the Hudson River tunnels, Project Gutenberg has some great articles from back when they were being built scanned, each with very detailed drawings. (I'd post a link, but YouTube'll probably auto-remove it. Damn.)

EDIT:
The articles titles are:

THE NEW YORK TUNNEL EXTENSION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD.
THE EAST RIVER DIVISION.

THE NEW YORK TUNNEL EXTENSION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD.
THE NORTH RIVER DIVISION.

and

THE NEW YORK TUNNEL EXTENSION OF THE PENNSYLVANIA RAILROAD

by the AMERICAN SOCIETY OF CIVIL ENGINEERS

[tamamovitch]

It's tragic that New York, and by extension, the rest of the US is ailing from failing infrastructure like this.

[Brian-crrb]

The Hudson River and the tide are a formidable force. I grew up on it and know it very well. I was down by the Bear Mountain Bridge a few years ago, it's right around the corner from Indian Point. I was on my way home from a Lady Liberty run on my jet ski when a tug with no barge came by at full speed ahead! I couldn't help myself from having a great time with that wave. The tide was going out, I messed up and got separated from my watercraft. Couldn't catch up with it! The Coast Guard saved my butt and reunited me with my vessel. I'm so happy that the tug captain didn't report me for being stupid! If they did, I could have been impounded and locked up facing big time fines btw! I'm a river rat for life, not caring about pcb contamination or the unexplained massive sized sturgeon I've encountered myself out there! Great video dude! I love learning more about my home turf and waters!

[terry_willis]

This is one of the most convoluted videos I have ever seen.

[robertgerber]

Love tunnels. Amazing that they start on both sides and meet in the middle with no gps