My only guess is that some of the money is really being diverted to the secret CIA projects on Alien Space Craft??[alien][alien] In reality for that amount of money NICTD could buy a whole regional railroad like EJ&E or Indiana Harbor Belt.
“The Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District’s board approved a $534.9 million West Lake design-build contract with a consortium of two Chicago companies, F.H. Paschen and Ragnar Benson Construction.”
The cost for this is discouraging news for other US Metro regions that want to build or expand rail passenger commuter service.
Does NICTD own the property where the new track is to be constructed? Have the Enviornmental surveys been completed and filed with the proper agencies? Have the engineering surveys been taken to understand the the soil conditions along the path of the new track alignment? That just scratches the surface of what is involved in building ‘new’ track out of face.
Suspect that if it was desired to build a high volume highway over those same 8 miles the price tage would be well North of 2 BILLION.
Undeer ground utilities are a big problem. Find them first. Then move those that do not cross your ROW at close to 90 degree angles. All utilities will need encasements to protect the product container. Pay outrageous prices for each utility company to relocate its service. Before utility company can relocate it might need to have another utility relocate off the ROW. That may cause a utilit company to make multiple runs to relocate the same service.
Utility relocation might have to be done in a certain order. Such as the deepest one relocated first. Then what happens when more than one both needs that lowest and cross off ROW ? What light rail line was it that did not protect utility lines and had to shut down for an extended time to replace a crushed line ?
All that work is finally planned and half way through guess what? An unknown utility line is encountered. Map was wrong. This poster likes the new way of boringutility lines instead of open trench but doubts that at times maps are always accurate. Also they are not encased as far as I know. Right now a 6 inch water line is being bored in our town.
As the utility lines are installed the contractor has to make days or weeks between subgrade passes over each depth covering lines. Extended equipment rentals cost contractors.
Some one who knows will have to post as to what weight capacity the line will have to be built to. That is 300k+ weights?
So that is this poster’s take on the high costs. Note as Balt posted highways are now built the same way as far as utilities go.
Can you be more specific about what this means? Does it refer to other utilities having to conduct or complete their relocation first, or to a utility having to install the equivalent of shoofly arrangements before performing the actual relocation?
This specific issue was repeatedly discussed in presentations to the Engineer’s Club of Memphis. My takeaway is that this is a ‘known’ thing and is regularly and carefully addressed in project planning – including the procedures followed when “anomalous things happen” during construction…
Now, of course… [:-^]
This certainly occurred during the Cleveland (medical center) extension in Memphis, if casual memory serves in the area west of the new Jefferson Avenue bridge over Danny Thomas. As I recall the assumption was that cross feeders were deep enough not to be affected… they turned out not to be.
This apparently happens more often than you’d think. It gets dealt with. Usually short of actual catastrophe with flood or flame. I could be cynical and say it’s a convenient way to excuse cost overruns sometimes, but there have been a couple of cases that made me wonder…
[quote]
This poster likes the new way of boring utility lines instead of open trench but dou
There was this project-https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illiana_Expressway which was thankfully cancelled. Now lets see if rail can offer a alternitve…8 miles is not enough…reclaim the Porter Rail Trail from Hammond to Chesterton
Once you drop beneath the surface of the land - all bets are off on the ‘utilities’ that are there - Water, Storm Sewer, Sanitary Sewer, Electric, Telephone, TV Cable, Heating Gas pipelines, Steam Lines, Subway Tunnels - the list goes on and on - depending on the particular location.
Here in my home town maps were consulted to ensure the water line was not hit during putting in a new sewer line. The water line was 1-foot from the curb. They dug trench 36 inches from the curb and hit the water line. O’h yeah - remember we widen the street ten years ago and moved the curb over 2-feet. This widening did not get put on the utility map.
Typically the one of the electric companies owns a pole line. If you are a communications company (legacy bell company, cable or other fiber company) you have to wait till they have gotten their work done first.
There are times that it may involve you having to run a temporary bypass to maintain service while the pole is being replaced.
Our local Gas Utility has safety notices about gas lines being bored through sewer lines.
"The presence of a gas pipe in a sewer line is known as a “cross bore.” A cross bore can remain undetected for months, even years. The typical way they are discovered is when the sewer line becomes clogged and a blockage needs to be removed. While it is common practice to use a mechanical rotary device to root out the blockage, this process could damage the gas pipe that has been bored through the sewer line, resulting in a loss of service and a potentially hazardous leak condition.
Background
Utilities use a trenchless technology called horizontal directional drilling (boring) to pull cables, conduit and pipe underground. This installation method causes less impact to the surrounding area and minimizes environmental disruption. It also saves time, allowing utility crews to work more efficiently. Before Nicor Gas begins directional drilling, precautionary safety measures are taken to determine the location of all underground facilities, including sewer lines. Unfortunately, there are instances when sewer lines cannot be properly identified and our gas pipe is inadvertently pulled through existing infrastructure, leaving the opportunity for accidental damage to the gas pipe in the future."
And as some remember the old slogan “Gas does the big jobs better” when seeing
Our local water and sewer department is using horizontal boring to install a new 6 inch water line. So far the contractor has had to make 4 unscheduled digs due to encountering unknown old utilities. Fortunately the contractor did not hit the city gas line as well although when digging found the new water line just an inch from the gas line.
As far as utility locations on poles it gets coplicated. The pole owner is responsible for standard replacements. Every other utility on the pole pays a fee. The last I heard was $25.00 per year. However around here if an emergency pole replacement is required the Electric utility replaces the pole and charges whom ever the pole belongs. As always who ever places another pole hopes the pot holer does not hit some unknown something underground.
When a pole is replaced the electric utility has to be there anyway to protect the high voltage lines. Almost always around here the highest voltage is highest on the pole with descending voltages down. An extreme exaple here is Ga Power is on top with their ground wire, then our local electric utility with their ground wire next. BTW both gound wires are connected. Then the residential 3 -110 / 220 volt lines next, then cable lines, and then ATT POT wire cables and then ATT fiber optic on the bottom.
When a pole is replaced the Electric utility(S) place their 3 phase and ground wires on the new pole and takes a chain saw and cuts the old pole down to just above the cable tv lines. That is unless the street lights are owned by city then city may move street lights. Example LaGrange ga. Or city gets electric company to move street light. Then the cable company comes along and and moves their cable(s) from the old pole to the new one and cut the pole to just above the telephone lines. Telephone company comes along moves their wires to new pole and removes the pole
If you look at a pole the attachments are made in order of their voltages.
Transmission typically 49kV to 220kV
Distribution typically 3kV to 30kV
36 inches Below the lowest neutral line (Including street lighting) in the distribution you get into the communication zone. Attachments are still made based on legacy voltage levels with Cable TV (60V-89V AC) being above Telephone (-48V DC). There are some legacy Cable systems that use 30VAC that are installed under the telephone lines.
This does not include all the other communications companies and DOT fiber that gets installed in the communications zone.
Usually the owner is whoever owns the highest attachment.
In Georgia there may three different companies attached at the distribution level. (GA Power, Municipal and Electric COOP)
So, a single pole move could involve as few as one or as many as 10 or more companies.
As said above the Cable company usually is the last one to do their transfers. If you see a line that has about a 1 foot piece of a pole attached to it, that is where they gave up waiting and had to pull the pole.
IIRC, it would be pretty rare to have transmission lines above 69kV on a shared pole for a variety of reasons.
Reasons include:
Induction from transmission line currents into lower voltage conductors
Safety
Transmission lines tend to have longer spans than distribution lines
Other than that, drawing agrees with shared pole design rules dating back at least a century.
At some point, the utility problem needs to be separated from the greenfield corridor construction issues.
Don’t try to call all underground utility installation horizontal drilling, call it “trenchless” and note the dozens of different ways of doing trenchless (some of which ought to be banned for their level of risk)
(1) Building a new line in a relatively urban area is a nightmare. The environmental impact statements (EIS) alone will be a nightmare in terms of cost and real world.
(2) If there is federal $$$ involved, there will come a demand to design and build to ASCE Subsurface Utility Engineering (S-U-E) standard level C (or better)… Already state law in Colorado and five other states if ANY public monies are involved (the world is finally waking-up to how reckless/cheap/careless the utility and pipeline world really is - railroads have been wise to some of the crap pulled by underground utilities and contractors since 1958-60)… I don’t know if Indiana HB 1218 passed this year or not, following Colorado’s lead, last reported as being watered-down and not following ASCE 38-02.
(3) If there is new construction, any utility (with the exception of some heavy wall steel gas lines 12’-6" or deeper and other utilities over 30’ deep will have to be replaced by cased lines (Pipe inside a larger diameter sacrificial pipe) either crossing or within 25 feet of the track)
Indiana and the railroads already have had fights over what rights railroads have in allowing utilities to cross or encroach on railroad property.
Fiber and cable utilities (generally the most reckless) are in a federal fight at the congressional FCC level. The “build it first and ask for forgiveness later” game is over, the railroads have dug-in. (and the Eagle1 Resources scam isn’t helping the issue)… Utilities have a really bad habit of not building line where they claimed they did - many times with contractors taking unauthorized shortcuts or
Running a railroad with catenary under that? Better find a pole with an additional 20 feet of clearance! (NESC)…and forget about running parallel within 50+ feet of the track with CTC or ABS. (and then there are the PTC issues[%-)])
Realistically, anything underground within 30 feet of the track ought to be cased with the exception of some sewers under ambient pressure (non-aspirated) and those ought to be steel. The toy-train (light rail) people here in Denver have seen a few fails because of no-casing. There also has been several HDD trenchless installation fails where too much pressure has caused humped track or drilling fluid frac-outs. One HDD failure took BNSF, UP and RTD all out of service at the same time (6" hump), that utility and contractor hadn’t managed to complete the permit process of any of the three railroads.
Overmod: stated in part:“…This specific issue was repeatedly discussed in presentations to the Engineer’s Club of Memphis. My takeaway is that this is a ‘known’ thing and is regularly and carefully addressed in project planning – including the procedures followed when “anomalous things happen” during construction…”
As a former resident of the City built on a Bluff, and sometimes; run on that same principle… And a participant in what was the 1960’s edition of the MUATS Traffic and Transportation Engineering study…Politics was always a consideration, Engineering, sometimes, not so much…
Memphis Light, Gas,& Water was a powerful force in the local potitical scene…At one time, annexation was a ‘driver’, and it was noted then; Memphis was a place where acerage, ie: annexed land, sometimes had more cattle than people.That was a basis for a community’s ‘size’
[ ie: Recall the time when Delta Air. Lines became Delta C&S, and was not invited to move into the City, because the Local Boss Hog was not a fan of flying(?)-a win for ATL] [:-^]
There was this project-