In one of four East River tunnels, 350 workers a day labor 24/7 as the 115-year-old tunnel crumbles from 14 million gallons of water that inundated it during Hurricane Sandy.

“We had structural problems with the bench walls themselves, and the utility systems that were running through them had been damaged by the hurricane, the Superstorm Sandy,” Warren Lebeau, Amtrak’s vice president for infrastructure delivery, said.

Now, brand-new bench walls are going in, and new wiring will be strung inside. Even the ballast stones the tracks were on will be replaced by concrete.

Also, improved safety: a bench wall will be lower to allow for easier evacuations, and the tunnel will now be up to modern fire code. Amtrak says all this work could not be done on nights and weekends.

“Every Monday you’r

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