Comment 116578

By Haveacow (registered) | Posted February 19, 2016 at 11:22:07

I seriously doubt that this site will be chosen unless the other sites are equally geographically hemmed in like this site and also have existing issues . You don't want the access to your LRT MSF (Maintenance & Storage facility) to be in a situation where you have to cut down local wires and transmission poles to bring in equipment. I have been in this area of Hamilton before and the site would present a difficult situation for the desperately needed but very large specialty construction equipment.

Keep in mind, when you build a LRT Yard you have to bring in truly massive pieces of construction equipment. For example, to keep cost down for most LRT Lines worldwide, the Traction Power Substations are provided as a single piece from the supplier, a long box like structure usually between 20-25 metres in length. These boxes have inside them, all the needed and ordered extra power control equipment required for the electrical operation for the LRT yard and the local portion of the LRT mainline(probably including the connecter tracks to the main line). Most LRT lines have one of these for every 1-3 kilometres of mainline. These TPSS's have a mass of between 50-180 metric tonnes each. They require very large portable cranes, the kind of crane you need to move large buildings, not just a single house. Any building site which has access limited by the need to cross active railway lines and or by pass existing bridges has several strikes against it already. These types of sites also have big construction and construction staging manging costs attached to them.

I have made this point before on this website, just because the building was built for buses, in no way does it make it suitable for modern LRV's. The sheer mass of a Light Rail vehicle requires massively reinforced floors (35-60 metric Tonnes each, compared to 6-8 for a bus). To accommodate the needed indoor railway equipment gantry cranes, you need 3-4 story high structurally reinforced roofs. One maintenance bay must be able to be actively air tight sealed (usually using positive air pressure sealing)for painting equipment and sand blasting of vehicle surfaces.

Modern LRV's are for the most part now all modular, they are delivered from their manufacturer in their component pieces and assembled "in shop". For example, a 5 section, 4 articulation joint equipped LRV, like the Flexity models form Bombardier or many other LRV builders, now require very large vertical mounted jigs (think giant clamps)to hold the component pieces together in place so they can be guided together at various controlled speeds to allow final manufacturing or removal as well as system testing. The "Jigs" go by many names but they are all very large and heavy. Usually requiring that they be structurally part of the floor or the load bearing outer walls of the building and or major load bearing interior walls. The advantage is that, if a particular LRV requires a new section so the vehicle can be made longer or the need arises for an out right replacement of an existing section due to mechanical or safety reasons, all the work can be done on site and the vehicle doesn't have to be shipped hundreds or possibly thousands of kilometers back to the closest factory. The new section just comes from the factory already complete. Ottawa is doing this right now with their Alstom Spirit Citadis LRV's at their new Belfast Yard.

This type of heavy maintenance equipment, including hydraulic lifts designed for vehicles that are between 30-45 metres long each, would force so many major rebuilds inside an existing structure that, unless the building was had this purpose initially in mind, it is most likely completely unsuitable. One more thing to think about, the diesel drainage and collecting system required for trucks and buses which is part of the floor structure would have to be removed and a EA done on the clean up of the contaminated concrete before the new floor could be structurally reinforced and installed. For all these engineering and cost associated reasons and many, many more that I can think that I didn't mention here, this site will probably not be chosen, in favor of a virgin site somewhere else with no or fewer prior issues.

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