PCL Lands Amtrak's $250M Seattle Facility On Time, $50M Under Budget

PCL Construction delivered a $250 million Amtrak maintenance facility in Seattle on time and $50 million under budget, the rail corporation announced Oct. 23. In an industry where 'on time' is usually aspirational, this one landed clean.

The Maintenance and Inspection Facility supports Amtrak's new Airo fleet, which debuted on the Amtrak Cascades route in the Pacific Northwest last month. The building will keep opening in phases through the end of the year.

What makes the facility a first for Amtrak?

The 100,000-square-foot building is the first of its kind for the rail operator. Three tracks let crews inspect, service and perform heavy maintenance on a full trainset under one roof. The 700-foot-long structure can swallow an entire Amtrak Cascades Airo trainset whole, which Amtrak says makes maintenance more efficient.

Edmonton, Alberta-based PCL, with U.S. headquarters in Denver, won the $300 million contract in fall 2024. The $50 million in savings goes back into other rail investments, Amtrak spokesperson Cheyenne Matthews told Construction Dive via email.

How did the team hit the budget?

Specialized systems did a lot of the heavy lifting — figuratively speaking, since the literal lifting falls to the overhead bridge crane. Andrew Fernandez, PCL's Seattle district manager, credited the long working relationship with the client.

"After more than a decade of working with Amtrak, this project really reflects the strength of the partnership our teams have built," Fernandez told Construction Dive via email. "That collaboration was especially important in coordinating specialized systems like the drop table and diesel exhaust extraction system, and I'm proud of how the entire team worked together to safely bring this facility to completion."

The shallow drop table system ranks among the first in the nation for passenger rail service, Fernandez said. It lets crews remove and replace undercarriage components without the excavation traditional drop tables demand. Less digging, fewer surprises.

Early coordination between PCL and the design-build team also integrated the diesel exhaust extraction system with the facility's structural, mechanical, electrical and controls infrastructure. That coordination caught a structural conflict before construction started, avoiding rework and delays, according to Fernandez. PCL topped out the steel structure in March, per a company release.

What's inside — and what did it take to build?

The 83-train Airo fleet offers more seats, larger windows and better accessibility, according to an Amtrak fact sheet. Equipment inside the facility includes:

• An overhead bridge crane and monorail crane
• Wayside water and air hose reels
• A fall protection lifeline system
• A shallow drop table, among the first for U.S. passenger rail

The project also added a new two-level, 39,000-square-foot employee parking deck and covered materials storage.

Over 40 subcontractors worked on the facility, creating roughly 120 construction jobs, per Amtrak. The raw numbers behind the build:

• 4,000 linear feet of rail
• 16,000 cubic yards of concrete
• 2.4 million pounds of concrete reinforcement
• 12 million pounds of structural steel
• 439 driven piles totaling 11 miles in length
• 132 drilled piles totaling three miles in length

With the facility opening in phases through year's end, the $50 million Amtrak recovered now becomes leverage for the next rail investment — a rare instance of a public project paying itself forward.