Oak Island Rail Yard

Connecting major shipping facilities at two ports, the Oak Island Rail Yard is an important rail car storage area for east coast rail routes.

The yard is located north of the Port Newark-Elizabeth Marine Terminal and Newark International Airport in an industrial area of the Ironbound section of Newark, New Jersey. The client planned to increase the capacity of the freight rail yard, as well as some of the main lines between the yards, in addition to solving track flooding problems.

Conti cleared, raised and realigned three miles of rail track in three busy Norfolk-Southern rail yards within a three-mile radius. Work also included installing crossover switches, signals, drainage, and underground utility installation. The new tracks were installed through existing wetlands. Conti required all workers to attend Conrail/Norfolk Southern rail safety and track training, as well as hold Certified NJ Transit Track Safety Awareness clearance. The result was zero lost time safety recordable incidents for the project.

A critical element of the project was to minimize disturbance to Conrail’s operations. The yard sees traffic of at least 30 trains each day. Conti extensively communicated and coordinated with the client on rail track closures to avoid impact to daily operations. The team delivered the project on an aggressive schedule to facilitate Conrail’s peak season yard operations for winter holiday rush.

Completing the tracks in the new rail car storage yard allowed Conrail to move rail cars to the new facility in order to begin expansion work on the old storage area.

Conti’s conscientious planning and coordination kept rail traffic on schedule during the entire project.