Amtrak has selected Wohlsen Construction Company for its Unified Operations Center (UOC) Facility Project. Located in Wilmington, Delaware, the project will also involve the construction of a data center. The selection of Wohlsen for the project followed a procurement process that started last year. The building will be put up at the Renaissance Centre and will include a Tier-3 data center, workspaces, conference rooms, an operations center, and mechanical and electrical system upgrades.
“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,” said Gery Williams, the Amtrak executive vice president, service delivery & operations.
“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,” he added.
Project Cost
Amtrak is investing a total of US$53 million in the UOC. It will also include an integrated 24/7 operations center to monitor and manage national operations. Additionally, dispatching the mid-Atlantic Division covering all train movements along the Washington-Philadelphia-Harrisburg corridor.
Construction timeline
Wohlsen Construction has estimated that building the Amtrak UOC facility and the data center will be completed by 2027. The Renaissance Centre facility spans 164,789 sq ft (15,309 sqm). The portion of this will be dedicated to a data center has not been shared. The premises were acquired in May 2020 for $41.1m after the location of Amtrak’s current NOC suffered “several flooding incidents” and the ongoing effects of climate change have increased the urgency of migrating. Plans for the move have been ongoing since December 2018.
The new building will also be home to the Amtrak Police Department’s National Communications Center, and the Amtrak Test Kitchen with associated offices. Furthermore, it will include moving Digital Technology personnel from their current temporary office space at the Wilmington Station.
Project Hurdles
Delays in the process have been caused by the original business case including “key assumptions that were not validated or correct,” according to the Amtrak Office of Inspector General.
Those assumptions included that the building was purchased before it was validated as able to accommodate the program requirements. The scope of the project was thus reduced. In May 2021, Amtrak announced that it was only planning to house 40 dispatchers from outside Wilmington in the new facility. A reduction from their initial plans for 250. Around 25 to 35 IT positions will be relocated to the new site.
Japan’s largest data center
In the data center world, the first phase of Japan’s largest data center was completed this week. Undertaken by Lendlease and Princeton Digital Group (PDG), the first phase of the 96 MW TY1 is located 30 kilometers north of central Tokyo in Saitama City. The TY1 campus is going to cover 60,000 square meters.
Further reading:
US-based Amazon Goes Nuclear as it Acquires $650M Atomic Data Centers from Cumulus Data
Construction new Amtrak station in Brattleboro to commence on March
Amtrak awards contract to rehabilitate rail transit infrastructure in Northeast region, US
