WILMINGTON, Del. — Wohlsen Construction Co. has been awarded the contract for Amtrak’s Unified Operations Center project in Wilmington, Del., the company announced on Friday.
The project, expected to cost more than $53 million, will built a 24-hour operations center for national operations, including fleet and onboard crew assignments and coordination of the response to service disruptions. A data center will also support system resiliency. The facility will also include the dispatching center for Amtrak’s Mid-Atlantic Division, which oversees all train movements in the Washington-Philadelphia-Harrisburg corridor.
The facility will be at the 164,789-square-foot Renaissance Centre in downtown Wilmington. It will allow relocation of the current Consolidated National Operating Center and Wilmington Dispatching Office from a flood-vulnerable location next to the Christina River.
“One of our primary goals for the Renaissance Centre building is to create a new Amtrak Unified Operations Center to serve our nationwide rail network, which will drive enhanced reliability, efficiency, safety and customer service,” Gery Williams, Amtrak executive vice president, service delivery & operations, said in a press release. “The new UOC is part of Amtrak’s transformation from legacy systems and practices to a modern, sustainable control center capable of supporting Amtrak’s long-term strategy to double ridership by 2040.” The facility is expected to be completed by 2027.
The Unified Operations Center project has not been without controversy. Amtrak’s Office of Inspector General said in a 2022 report that the passenger operator would see few of the cost savings and staff consolidation benefits it had anticipated because it failed to verify its plans [see “Report says Amtrak will see few projected benefits …,” Trains News Wire, May 16, 2022].
— Updated April 9 at 11:30 a.m. CT to correct name of facility to “Unified” in headline and some references in article.
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