Heavy Rail, Commuter Rail, & Intercity Transportation

[Changing City]

Originally Posted by Alex Mackinnon

I doubt much would be happening on the underpass alignment yet. To my knowledge, the neighbourhood association is still fighting the city on this one.

They're pissed that the city wants to keep Venables and Prior as the main traffic carrying street in the neighbourhood.

The city proposed calming Venables/Prior at the same time as installing the underpass. It's the usual slowly trying to decide if they want to suck or blow, and doing both poorly. I think its ridiculous that they spent all these years investigating other alignments and have gone back to Prior. So much face palm.

The underpass was approved by the city, so I don't think the Strathcona Residents have much ability to get that revisited. The holdup would be if the Port and/or senior governments don't pay for it - there's not supposed to be any cost to the City. We'll see if that money comes forward, but there's nothing the City or residents could do to halt the twin tracking, as far as I know, and that's going forward anyway. Once it's complete, and the Centerm expansion, the amount of train movements will presumably close the road down even more often than today if no underpass gets built.

[madog222]

The New Westminster Bridge is getting a seismic retrofit.
I just came across this and don't remember hearing anything in the news. This was posted September last year.

It looks like work has already started on the on shore pier 11
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.20688.../data=!3m1!1e3

Seismic Retrofit of a 110-year Old Railway Bridge

The main span of the bridge is supported by eleven piers made of unreinforced concrete, faced with granite blocks which support the superstructure truss spans. Pier 1 is on land (just off the photo in Figure 1), piers 2 to 5 are on deep concrete caissons, and piers 6 to 11 are on concrete-filled timber cribs with timber pile foundations installed by “jetting” into the river sands.



Replacing the bridge was not practical or cost-effective, so we developed a retrofit strategy to transfer the load of the bridge from the liquefiable foundation to a deeper non-liquefiable foundation, to withstand a 475-year return period earthquake. The most practical solution was to drive large diameter pipe piles upstream and downstream of piers 6 to 10, through the liquefiable layers to glacial till, and to connect the piles to the piers with steel collar frames.



We also considered methods to improve the strength of the potentially liquefiable foundation (i.e. ground improvement) around each of the piers and concluded that this was only practical at pier 11, where the ground surface is above river level. Ground improvement at piers 6 to 10 was not practical because of the required depth of pile driving, the large zone of riprap around the piers, and its impact on the environment and the river’s navigable channel.

Our solution meant that the existing foundations would continue to support the piers under static conditions, while the retrofitted piers 6 to 11 would limit the horizontal movements of the piers and bear the weight of the bridge during and after a strong earthquake.

From: https://www.klohn.com/blog/seismic-r...ailway-bridge/

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

i guess this proves they wont be replacing that bridge anytime soon. but its good to fix it up to have a better chance at surviving.

[officedweller]

Thanks for posting!

[twoNeurons]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

i guess this proves they wont be replacing that bridge anytime soon. but its good to fix it up to have a better chance at surviving.

Stopgap solution.

Seismic problems aren't the only issue... capacity is a big one, is it not?

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by twoNeurons

Stopgap solution.

Seismic problems aren't the only issue... capacity is a big one, is it not?

It's CN's bridge, if capacity was hurting them I'm sure a replacement would be a priority but it doesn't seem like it is.

[jollyburger]

Originally Posted by chowhou

It's CN's bridge, if capacity was hurting them I'm sure a replacement would be a priority but it doesn't seem like it is.

There were some studies that said it would reach capacity in 2010:

https://vancouver.ca/docs/eastern-co...ture-study.pdf

[chowhou]

Originally Posted by jollyburger

There were some studies that said it would reach capacity in 2010:

https://vancouver.ca/docs/eastern-co...ture-study.pdf

Maybe so, but there don't seem to be any grumblings from CN about operations being significantly affected.

[Henbo]

Originally Posted by chowhou

It's CN's bridge, if capacity was hurting them I'm sure a replacement would be a priority but it doesn't seem like it is.

Owned by the Government of Canada (Public Services and Procurement Canada)

But operated and maintained by CN

I think there’s a slow and steady momentum for replacing it. No plans finalized yet however

[officedweller]

Train derailment at Vancouver waterfront caught on camera
https://globalnews.ca/news/7263001/v...er-waterfront/

[trofirhen]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Train derailment at Vancouver waterfront caught on camera
https://globalnews.ca/news/7263001/v...er-waterfront/

Looking at the rusty tracks and seemingly fragile railbed I wonder if infrastructure rebuild investment would be worthwhile. Looking at it, it all has rather a slightly flimsy look.
Of course this is only an individual perception, and that element may not have figured into the derailment at all, but it might be good to find out.

[red-paladin]

Originally Posted by officedweller

Train derailment at Vancouver waterfront caught on camera
https://globalnews.ca/news/7263001/v...er-waterfront/

Imagine if there were columns between the rails there...

[officedweller]

Looks like it just jumped a switch.
If the columns were beefy enough, the derailment probably would have been more apparent earlier due to scraping / collision).

[VancouverOfTheFuture]

that's not a traditional derailment that we would think about. that is something with the switch. my guess is a piece of steel on the switch broke as the train went over causing the switch to change directions midway. the train really was going along on 2 different sets of tracks and didn't derail in the traditional sense.

the tracks look fine to me, steel rusts outdoors fast, and the ballast looks fine though the video is too far away to be able to tell anything worth while about the ballast, and they do check that stuff on a fairly regular basis. though generally the TSB looks into these things anyways.

[cganuelas1995]

All I could think was "multitrack drifting" and "how do you not notice that?"

[aberdeen5698]

Originally Posted by VancouverOfTheFuture

the train really was going along on 2 different sets of tracks and didn't derail in the traditional sense.

It looks to me like the diagonal car's bogie that's closest to the camera actually did derail, you can see the car bouncing over the ties.

[Trainguy]

Originally Posted by madog222

The New Westminster Bridge is getting a seismic retrofit.
I just came across this and don't remember hearing anything in the news. This was posted September last year.

It looks like work has already started on the on shore pier 11
https://www.google.ca/maps/@49.20688.../data=!3m1!1e3

From: https://www.klohn.com/blog/seismic-r...ailway-bridge/

If I remember correctly, those are the original stone piers. The current bridge replaced an earlier one years ago using the same piers.

[madog222]

Originally Posted by Trainguy

If I remember correctly, those are the original stone piers. The current bridge replaced an earlier one years ago using the same piers.

The span immediately West (New West side) of the swing span is new circa 1976, everything else is original.

[cganuelas1995]

“We know that more and more people are choosing the Fraser Valley to live, work and raise their children,” said Claire Trevena, BC Minister of Transportation and Infrastructure, in a statement.

“Traffic congestion in the Fraser Valley continues to be a problem for people. We need to develop transportation networks and invest in solutions that support the successful growth of the Fraser Valley for the people who live and work there, now and in the future.”

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bc-f...FqcGq21pzxFMXQ

[CivicBlues]

Originally Posted by cganuelas1995

https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/bc-f...FqcGq21pzxFMXQ

What a surprise, instead of solutions the NDP government offers up more studies!