Freight News, Logistics

Mammoet Pieces Together Portal North Bridge

[ September 12, 2025   //   Gary Burrows ]

Mammoet, the Dutch company specializing in engineered heavy lifting and the transport of oversized cargo, has helped to achieve a significant milestone, along with Skanshka-Traylor and Carver Marine, in the Portal North Bridge project.

The infrastructure project replaces the century-old Portal Bridge, a key link between Newark, New Jersey, and New York City. The current bridge is centuries old and is a notorious bottleneck that has long caused delays for Amtrak and New Jersey Transit trains due to its outdated swing mechanism and frequent malfunctions, Mammoet said.

The new bridge, a modern fixed-span structure more than 50 feet above the water, will eliminate several mass transit problems, improving reliability and efficiency along one of the busiest U.S. rail corridors, while allowing both land and water traffic to simultaneously traverse the area.

Leveraging its experience in bridge installations, Mammoet successfully transported the three bridge sections, each measuring more than 400 feet, from the assembly site at Port of Coeymans to the roll-on location, where they were then loaded onto a barge for further transit down the Hudson River.

Each section was carefully transloaded onto the temporary mid-river staging called the transfer bent, before loading onto another barge prepared with Mammoet’s Mega Jack system, or MJS.

Once on the MJS, teams would jack each of the bridge sections 14 to 16 cassettes high, where the sections would then be positioned by Mammoet’s client using tugboats and winches before Mammoet lowered the sections into place on their columns. Both the east and west bridge sections had the added step of being slid into place using Mammoet’s slide track systems.

Using of the Mega Jack allowed for greater speed in raising the bridge sections to the necessary height, and the skid systems allowed for precise placement of the bridge sections into final position. The quick operation of the MJS allowed for better management of setting windows due to the large tidal differences, Mammoet said.

“Our team combined extensive experience and technical expertise to support this first major milestone for the Portal North Bridge project,” said Sidney King, Mammoet’s project manager for the Portal North Bridge project. “The bridge section’s relocation and successful loading onto the barge demanded careful planning and close coordination with Skanska and Carver, and we’re proud to report a seamless operation.”

Tags: Carver Marine, Mammoet, Skanshka-Traylor