Alstom Appitrack – Would Broadway Be A Good Candidate?
Alstomai??i??s fast automated tracklaying technology, Appitrack, was chosen as the Innovation of the Year at the 2011 Light Rail awards held in London on 5th October.
The system allows for limited excavation depths in order to speed up track-laying time with the ability to lay up to 200 metres of track per day, compared with just 50-60 metres using conventional methods, and therefore reduce project costs. Appitrack also as low noise levels and is applicable to all types of track surfaces and with all types of equipment.
Alstom has used Appitrack in the tramway projects recently inaugurated in Jerusalem, Reims, Algiers, and on the second line of the Orleans tramway that is due to enter service in 2012. It was in Orleans in March 2011 that Appitrack set a world track laying 403 metres of single track laid in one day, the equivalent length of almost four football pitches.
Let us see, 200 metres of double track a day translates into 1 kilometre of track a week. In theory, a 20 km line of on-street LRT could be laid in 20 weeks!
Again and not to upset the SkyTrain types, in theory we could reinstate a LRT/streetcar line from Boundary to UBC easily in one year. This means minimal disruptions for adjacent businesses where tram construction would only affect their businesses for a maximum of time and certainly not the three years of hell suffered by Cambie St. Merchants with the construction of the Canada Line cut-and-cover subway.
Memo to TransLink: The LRT future is very friendly.
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They use a system very similar to this in Toronto on the newer Streetcar tracks, Subway replacement tracks and it will be used on the new LRT lines however, It takes longer in more northern climates, I’m told by engineers and construction people. The concrete has to be cured longer and have additives in the mixture to allow for extreme amounts of expansion and contraction in our highly variable climate, especially in our temperature unstable spring and fall seasons, which can regularly very 40+/- degrees C, within the same month. Once the concrete is declared stable by experts and you have cleared a sufficient amount of space for all the equipment to be brought in to start laying the track (which can be very difficult in the tight spaces in a urban construction zone), you are off to the races!
Oh, a friend of mine just leaned over my shoulder (he is a rail guy) and read your piece. He said also you are assuming there are no curves and turnouts. The rail has to be heated when laying curves and this can damage the pins that hold the rail. Also when you come to turnouts you are no longer using long sections or rolled rail but sectional pieces and pre maid turnout structures from factories. He likes the article by the way, he is doing a fist pump for you. Engineer Chucky is happy! He’s happy, he’s really happy! Zwei, you have made a minor miracle occur.
Zwei replies: The Broadway route is almost a straight line, on top of the old streetcar foundation. There is chicane from Broadway, up Alma to 10th Ave.
Great post. For the track construction, impacts for businesses are small and short term with good planning, also. Of course, it means replacing everyone at TransLink and all the corrupt transportation engineers at the City of Vancouver, too, to make it happen.
Two sets of tracks for both directions are not required on Broadway. One set of tracks can be built on Broadway and the existing set of rail tracks on West 6th Avenue can be used. Then, one tram loop can run between the Canada Line and UBC (20 km round trip loop) along Broadway and West 6th Avenue.
This has three advantages:
First, it cuts the capital cost dramatically for the new track construction and the number of trams.
Second, it reduces the amount of road space taken up on Broadway.
Third, shorter trolleybuses can travel in the opposite direction of the longer trams in the loop to better match transit capacity to demand.
That is, long trams in both directions are over kill. In the morning, transit demand is east to west (from Canada Line to UBC) and in the afternoon, transit demand is west to east (from UBC to Canada Line). One tram loop can handle this and avoids trams running with few people on board, 50% of the time, just like the 99 B-Lines do, presently.
Portland, OR has been doing similar work with its streetcar lines: 3 blocks in 3 weeks with a 13 inch excavation into an established street. On a street like Broadway using half the street for constlruction while diverting cars to to other would work. Many places find curbside running is best, with the sidewalk as platform. It avoids passengers navigating traffic lanes and also Toronto’s problem of streetcars stuck behind left-turing autos.
Bob Trotter
Greater Victoria Light Rail Society
Victoria, BC
Brentwood Mall would be a reasonable eastern terminus for a Broadway streetcar line.