Green Line / Central Corridor construction thread (archive)

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talindsay
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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby talindsay » July 26th, 2013, 11:53 am

My guess is that they used a Type I LRV because they have such a long service history that MT would know for sure whether a problem encountered was due to the car or the track; the Siemens are so new that if there had been a problem, the operators might have more trouble determining what was causing it. That's just a guess though.

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby twinkess » July 26th, 2013, 1:55 pm

My guess is that they used a Type I LRV because they have such a long service history that MT would know for sure whether a problem encountered was due to the car or the track; the Siemens are so new that if there had been a problem, the operators might have more trouble determining what was causing it. That's just a guess though.
Possibly also since they will be doing vibration testing and want to use the heaviest train that will be in service?

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby LRV Op Dude » July 31st, 2013, 9:47 am

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UptownSport
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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby UptownSport » August 1st, 2013, 11:11 am

Any news of defects from the run??????

Otherwise, I'll assume the train runs!

Since it runs, when can we ride it to the U?????? Lets get cracking!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby Rico » August 2nd, 2013, 6:34 pm

With a project of this significance and visibility I'm sure it will get done on time but I'm a little surprised that it is now August and the progress this summer on the catenary wiring appears virtually nonexistent. Catenary wiring still ceases to exist for the bulk of the University track in St. Paul and all the way through downtown St. Paul. This is the same basic state we were in at the end of 2012.

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby Silophant » August 2nd, 2013, 10:48 pm

Really? I'll admit that I don't often go further east than Midway, but I went out to Menards tonight, and the catenary was up all the way to that point. There were even crews working on it, at 10pm on a Friday.
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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby bptenor » August 2nd, 2013, 10:52 pm

At least last week, catenary was up just past the Snelling intersection. I admit I thought there would be more up at this point, but I don't have any worries that we're behind schedule.

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby UptownSport » August 3rd, 2013, 7:07 pm

That video, sounded like they were going to do a whole lot of testing on entire line very soon with vehicles.

I was surprised at lack of progress on overhead lines too; they went almost up to Hamline 1.5x weeks ago, but it was just strung up.
didn't go DT St Paul

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby Le Sueur » August 4th, 2013, 7:15 pm

Is it possible that the catenary wiring is the least of the bottlenecks for overall construction left at this point? I can imagine other overhead work being done around stations (electronic signage, fiber, electric, etc.) may be be easier without tangling in overhead wires?

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby UptownSport » August 4th, 2013, 7:19 pm

Sure- And it may be as the TPSSes (Traction Power Substation) that buying rolls of copper to leave hanging, unused, is very expensive.

Any word on if they're doing more underpower testing at the U?

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby Tom H. » August 5th, 2013, 8:39 am

The email from a few weeks ago indicated that daily testing on campus would begin today (Aug. 5), and be conducted nightly from 1am-5am, until September. This testing is specifically for electromagnetic interference tests, I believe. I'm not sure if that means it started last night, or tonight. Any witnesses?

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby Tom H. » August 6th, 2013, 10:40 am

An updated staff/employee/student email from yesterday indicates that EMI testing on campus will begin Thurdsay, Aug. 8. The testing times are still 1am-5am, so I'm still not sure if that means that testing will begin Thursday AM or Friday AM (Thursday 'night').

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby FISHMANPET » August 6th, 2013, 10:46 am

Also from the sound of it they're not going to want people around taking videos or photos, or even being there, because they're trying to minimize interference while they do the EMI tests. They're also going to be shutting down elevators in nearby buildings, so that should give you an idea of how quiet they want it to be.

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby ProspectPete » August 6th, 2013, 12:57 pm

Does anyone know if the green line trains will have "priority" over the lights? Will they be able to "trip" the lights? Could be kind of frustrating waiting on university ave at a platform, and your train is just 50 feet / 5 minutes away waiting for the lights to go through their entire cycle. Just curious since I didn't see any RR crossing arms like the Hiawatha blue line intersections.

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby mulad » August 6th, 2013, 2:57 pm

They will have some amount of signal priority, but I don't know how much. The most similar segment along the Blue Line is probably the stretch between the Terminal 2 and American Boulevard stations along 34th Avenue.

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby nickmgray » August 7th, 2013, 8:26 am

this may be a bit off topic, but is there any reason why the system can not be powered using wireless charging like Korea's new bus line? The system only requires 5 to 15 percent of the route to be electrified for the buses to maintain enough charge for the 15 mile route.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/06/wire ... ic-routes/

It's currently in testing, but it would be great if future rail development could take advantage of an in-ground wireless charging solution since it would get rid of the much-hated overhead cables.

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby mulad » August 7th, 2013, 10:30 am

This technology still seems pretty young, though it's worth watching. I'm curious what voltage they use -- the 750VDC substations used for our system would probably limit power delivery for each vehicle to something on the order of 150 kW (that's 750V at 200 amps), which isn't a whole lot (201 horsepower). I imagine different substations would need to be used that could deliver a higher voltage, so a few megawatts of power could be delivered without melting the wire. 25,000-volt AC power is common for mainline railroad service in Europe and Japan, so maybe they've used substations originally intended for that purpose -- 25kV at 200 amps works out to 5 megawatts (equivalent to a couple of wind turbines at full tilt).

Different vehicles with batteries would also be needed, of course.

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby LRV Op Dude » August 8th, 2013, 1:11 am

this may be a bit off topic, but is there any reason why the system can not be powered using wireless charging like Korea's new bus line? The system only requires 5 to 15 percent of the route to be electrified for the buses to maintain enough charge for the 15 mile route.

http://www.engadget.com/2013/08/06/wire ... ic-routes/

It's currently in testing, but it would be great if future rail development could take advantage of an in-ground wireless charging solution since it would get rid of the much-hated overhead cables.
It is too late for this to be applied to the Green Line. I would love to see this technology used on the streetcars. PRIMOVE by Bombardier applies the same type of technology.



Bombardier has a LRV that uses this technology.

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talindsay
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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby talindsay » August 8th, 2013, 7:44 am

Rather than relying on batteries though, which are horrible for the environment in production, horrible in disposal, and have a short, limited lifespan, I would suggest that if no overhead wire were a primary concern they could better address it using some of the hidden third rail methods. However, given the problems with single-source bidding and relying on proprietary technologies, I think we can accept that we're not a region for which the risk is worth it, and just put up caternary.

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Re: Green Line (Central)

Postby FISHMANPET » August 8th, 2013, 8:15 am

I've got no problem with catenary, it reminds me that I'm in a city.


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