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Post by Gokhan on Dec 4, 2012 14:36:18 GMT -8
I think Venice Blvd bridge will delay Phase 2.
Your opinions on what will delay Phase 2 go below.
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Post by joshuanickel on Dec 4, 2012 15:22:27 GMT -8
Venice Blvd has my vote too. Is it possible to run trains between Palms and 4th/Colorado? The maintenance yard would be accessible and the cars would be in the yard.
It is also possible that receiving the LRV's will delay expo phase 2 and foothill gold. Metro won't start receiving the first cars until mid 2014
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Post by Philip on Dec 4, 2012 16:24:41 GMT -8
Is the bridge really looking like it's going to take *that* long? So far, the utility relocation seems to be going smoothly.
Considering how much time we have left for major work (a little over two years), is it really conceivable that this could take that much time with the current pace of construction?
I know Balfour Beatty has been slow recently, but two years?? That's unacceptable.
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Post by Gokhan on Dec 4, 2012 17:00:11 GMT -8
Well, two years may sound long now but it will pass very fast.
Before they finish the bridge, they can't lay tracks, OCS, ATP, etc., and the main contractor cannot start working on the project in this area. All the other bridges are well underway now.
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Post by rajacobs on Dec 4, 2012 18:37:46 GMT -8
Heard at the Wednesday night "Community Workshop" the planner clearly say that completion would be in 2016, not 2015.
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Post by Philip on Dec 5, 2012 13:26:37 GMT -8
The completion may be *slated* for 2016, but I think they're going to push hard for a 4th quarter 2015 startup date.
If for no other reason, it will prove this project a sharp contrast to the constantly delayed, snail-like work pace of Phase 1.
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Post by masonite on Dec 5, 2012 15:27:50 GMT -8
The completion may be *slated* for 2016, but I think they're going to push hard for a 4th quarter 2015 startup date. If for no other reason, it will prove this project a sharp contrast to the constantly delayed, snail-like work pace of Phase 1. I've heard different things. Take it all with a grain of salt at this point. We are so far out from completion right now, it is almost meaningless. So many things could trip up the construction and completion. I don't think it will be the cars though as they would have to be almost a year late before it would really affect the testing. Remember they don't need all the cars to start Expo Phase II. Only a small portion of them as a lot of these cars will replace the Nippon Sharyo cars of which I think they are in decent shape and could do a few more years work. They do need some of the cars to be delivered though to start so if the vendor completely falls apart that will be an issue. Some of this is dependent on Foothill Gold Line finishing too and if it beats Expo.
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Post by Gokhan on Dec 5, 2012 16:30:23 GMT -8
I think if everything goes well, Expo Phase 2 to Santa Monica can open before the end of 2015. However, we know that things may not go that well, such as the Venice bridge, delivery of Kinki Sharyos, and other unexpected problems.
This said, the current plan is to start train testing in late 2014.
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Post by roadtrainer on Dec 5, 2012 21:08:18 GMT -8
;DSkansa will finish the construction before 2015, after all they bided the contract low by $100,000,000! Therefore they will prevail to get the job done, or else they will become like the evil flatiron and be crying for mo money, mo money, mo money! But they are a class act and you can tell by their work on the Gold line Bridge! So quit crying and being nay-Sayers! We should be celebrating and placing bets on which section or bridge that will be completed first. Dwight's photos are awesome and I can't wait to see what next weeks are going to show! Sincerely the roadtrainer
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Post by bzcat on Feb 20, 2013 16:37:50 GMT -8
Construction seems to be moving swiftly but it appears that light rail car delivery schedule has slipped again. According to this Metro document: www.metro.net/board/Items/2013/01_January/20130117OPItem62Handout.pdfThe first light rail cars for Expo II and Gold Line Foothill won't be received until March 2015 and the entire 78 cars won't be fully delivered until February 2017. That makes 2016 revenue service rather questionable in my opinion. Metro will have to choose to start service on either Expo II or Gold Line Foothill in 2016; not both, as it won't have enough rail cars on hand by 2016.
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Post by Gokhan on Feb 20, 2013 18:03:19 GMT -8
Construction seems to be moving swiftly but it appears that light rail car delivery schedule has slipped again. According to this Metro document: www.metro.net/board/Items/2013/01_January/20130117OPItem62Handout.pdfThe first light rail cars for Expo II and Gold Line Foothill won't be received until March 2015 and the entire 78 cars won't be fully delivered until February 2017. That makes 2016 revenue service rather questionable in my opinion. Metro will have to choose to start service on either Expo II or Gold Line Foothill in 2016; not both, as it won't have enough rail cars on hand by 2016. Not necessarily. This is the formula I originally posted at the Expo operations thread: round-trip time + dead time at the origin + dead time at the terminus = number of trains x one-way headwayround-trip time: round-trip travel time from the origin to the terminus and then back dead time at the origin: time an arriving train spends at the origin before its scheduled departure dead time at the terminus: time an arriving train spends at the terminus before its scheduled departure one-way headway: time before the next train in the same direction on the schedule For Phase 2, round-trip time is 44 x 2 = 88 minutes. For dead times, use 6 minutes x 2. For 12-minute headways, this results in 8 or 9 trains. For Phase 1, they are using 6 trains. Therefore, they would need only 3 more trains, or 9 more rail cars for Phase 2. They should easily get 9 Kinki Sharyo cars by the late-2015 opening date. Sure, with 12-minute headways, trains will be jam-packed at rush hour, but this is better than not running any.
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Post by RMoses on Feb 21, 2013 16:26:44 GMT -8
Using a 10 minute headway average (higher peak), and 52 minute trip (hopefully) I compute at least 12 trains translating to 18 additional cars. What is the max capacity of the junction per hour? * Gokhan's formula
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Post by Gokhan on Feb 21, 2013 17:31:05 GMT -8
Using a 10 minute headway average (higher peak), and 52 minute trip (hopefully) I compute at least 12 trains translating to 18 additional cars. What is the max capacity of the junction per hour? * Gokhan's formulaOK, the worst-case scenario for the scheduled trip time is 47 minutes. 52 minutes is highly unrealistic for the scheduled time considering that the 6.6-mile-long Phase 2 is entirely grade-separated except for the last one mile in the median of Colorado, which I estimate to take 5 minutes between Colorado/17th and Colorado/4th. Phase 1 will also speed up 1 minute automatically when Phase 2 opens because Culver City will no longer be the terminus. If they don't speed up Phase 1, I conservatively estimate the trip time to be 46 minutes. It could be 44 minutes or so with a little Phase 1 speed-up. With 10-minute headways and 6-minute down times, it results in 11 trains or 5 new trains, 15 new rail cars. I am not sure if (although don't think) they can do 10 minute headways without decreasing the Blue Line headways as well, which would require a lot more new cars. I think ultimately they want to be able to run up to 5-minute headways for both the Expo and Blue Lines.
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Post by Alexis Kasperavičius on Feb 21, 2013 20:04:00 GMT -8
I conservatively estimate the trip time to be 46 minutes. It could be 44 minutes or so with a little Phase 1 speed-up. Does anyone know total trip time for the Air Line and the LA&IRR? It might be interesting to compare other lines on this route. I seem to recall they were around thirty minutes, but could be wrong.
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Post by RMoses on Feb 21, 2013 20:08:39 GMT -8
I believe it was 32 min, the long way around.
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Post by Gokhan on Feb 21, 2013 20:20:23 GMT -8
There is probably a lot of info about it in the historic LA Times clips I posted on the Expo history thread. 32 minutes is for the original 1909 Santa Monica Air Line with only The Palms stop in between. For that roughly 18-mile-long original alignment, It's good but not superfast either. Each additional stop adds about a minute and new line will have 19 stops -- 16 more than the original. So, 32 + 16 = 48 minutes to give a ballpark figure. Therefore, it looks like the trains ran with about the same speed back then. However, back in 1909 it was all empty land, nothing other than Palms in between Santa Monica and Los Angeles. Therefore, the Expo Line trains are certainly cruising faster. I am guessing back than the top cruising speed was no more than about 45 MPH. Nevertheless, it would be an exhilarating experience to ride on those wooden trains zipping through the vast fields. Someone builds a time machine!
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Post by joemagruder on Feb 21, 2013 21:04:03 GMT -8
There is a time machine. The Western Railway Museum at Rio Vista Junction frequently operates wooden cars "through vast fields" on more than 5 re-electrified miles of the Sacramento Northern Railway. (www.wrm.org)
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Post by pithecanthropus on Mar 31, 2013 13:45:36 GMT -8
Venice Blvd has my vote too. Is it possible to run trains between Palms and 4th/Colorado? The maintenance yard would be accessible and the cars would be in the yard. It is also possible that receiving the LRV's will delay expo phase 2 and foothill gold. Metro won't start receiving the first cars until mid 2014 How would they get the cars out to Santa Monica without the Venice overpass? Is there another rail route?
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Post by Gokhan on Mar 31, 2013 17:27:44 GMT -8
Venice Blvd has my vote too. Is it possible to run trains between Palms and 4th/Colorado? The maintenance yard would be accessible and the cars would be in the yard. It is also possible that receiving the LRV's will delay expo phase 2 and foothill gold. Metro won't start receiving the first cars until mid 2014 How would they get the cars out to Santa Monica without the Venice overpass? Is there another rail route? Venice bridge will be completed at the end of the year -- so no problem there. expolinefan was also told that Caltrans has now OKd the Motor bridge. The only remaining problem seems to be the CPUC matters. Hopefully Expo will start laying track without waiting for the end of the rehearing.
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Post by darrell on Mar 31, 2013 20:25:49 GMT -8
The 1/30/13 Expo Community Meeting update meeting included this timeline: 2013 — Bridge and Station Construction, Utility Relocation, Sound walls and Track Installation 2014 — Roadway Improvements, Station Finishes, Electrical System, Train Control, and Landscaping Installation 2015 — Systems Testing and Pre-Revenue Operations So far they're looking good for finishing everything on the 2013 list early - except maybe tracks on Colorado. The Source reported on 4/30/12 that "28 of the new rail cars are scheduled to be delivered by 2015 and a total of 62 by May 2016." So Phase 2 may be finished but still awaiting enough LRVs to operate.
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Post by crzwdjk on Mar 31, 2013 20:59:26 GMT -8
Venice Blvd has my vote too. Is it possible to run trains between Palms and 4th/Colorado? The maintenance yard would be accessible and the cars would be in the yard. It is also possible that receiving the LRV's will delay expo phase 2 and foothill gold. Metro won't start receiving the first cars until mid 2014 How would they get the cars out to Santa Monica without the Venice overpass? Is there another rail route? The same way they get the cars from the manufacturer in the first place, or from the Blue Line to the Gold Line. On a truck trailer, either all at once or with the two articulated halves separated. If it's all at once, that'd be a rather oversize truck trailer, but rolling the cars on and off would be a relatively quick and easy operation.
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Post by Philip on Apr 1, 2013 8:11:52 GMT -8
Could this really cause a delay in revenue service? To alleviate the lack of cars, couldn't Metro (early on) use two-car trains for the Expo Line in order to begin service in 2015? Yes, the trains would be packed, but at least they'd be running...
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Post by joshuanickel on Apr 1, 2013 10:37:04 GMT -8
Could this really cause a delay in revenue service? To alleviate the lack of cars, couldn't Metro (early on) use two-car trains for the Expo Line in order to begin service in 2015? Yes, the trains would be packed, but at least they'd be running... If you had 2 car trains on expo, you would have 2 car trains on the blue line. At 7th/metro center an expo train coming in sometimes leaves as a blue line train. That is why the expo line has 3 car trains. If it was on its own separate row, it probably would of only used two car trains like the green and gold lines. I don't believe that two car trains is enough capacity for the blue line.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 1, 2013 10:48:40 GMT -8
If some of the new trains arrive, a more plausible way to operate Phase 2 would be to keep the current 12-minute headways. Since Phase 2 is only 6.6 miles and the average speed is pretty fast, only a few extra trains (3 additional trains to be exact) would be needed. See my post above.
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Post by bzcat on Apr 1, 2013 11:29:24 GMT -8
The 1/30/13 Expo Community Meeting update meeting included this timeline: 2013 — Bridge and Station Construction, Utility Relocation, Sound walls and Track Installation 2014 — Roadway Improvements, Station Finishes, Electrical System, Train Control, and Landscaping Installation 2015 — Systems Testing and Pre-Revenue Operations So far they're looking good for finishing everything on the 2013 list early - except maybe tracks on Colorado. The Source reported on 4/30/12 that "28 of the new rail cars are scheduled to be delivered by 2015 and a total of 62 by May 2016." So Phase 2 may be finished but still awaiting enough LRVs to operate. See my post on reply #9 The delivery schedule for the LRV has slipped by about 12 months. So in my opinion, it is a very serious problem, despite Gokhan's optimism...
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 1, 2013 11:49:20 GMT -8
The 1/30/13 Expo Community Meeting update meeting included this timeline: 2013 — Bridge and Station Construction, Utility Relocation, Sound walls and Track Installation 2014 — Roadway Improvements, Station Finishes, Electrical System, Train Control, and Landscaping Installation 2015 — Systems Testing and Pre-Revenue Operations So far they're looking good for finishing everything on the 2013 list early - except maybe tracks on Colorado. The Source reported on 4/30/12 that "28 of the new rail cars are scheduled to be delivered by 2015 and a total of 62 by May 2016." So Phase 2 may be finished but still awaiting enough LRVs to operate. See my post on reply #9 The delivery schedule for the LRV has slipped by about 12 months. So in my opinion, it is a very serious problem, despite Gokhan's optimism... The latest, January 2013 report you linked says: New 78 Light Rail Vehicle Acquisition (P3010)
• NTP in August 2012 • Specification review currently underway • First two pilot vehicles due – October 2014 • First four revenue service vehicles due March 2015 • Complete delivery of 78 base order vehicles due February 2017 • Additional options available totaling 235 vehiclesThey need only 9 new LRVs to operate Phase 2 with 12-minute headways. It says they will receive 4 LRVs in March 2015. It looks like they will receive about 3 LRVs every month thereafter. If this schedule isn't delayed, they can easily open Phase 2 with 12-minute headways in summer 2015.
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Post by Gokhan on Apr 1, 2013 12:21:41 GMT -8
However, with the delivery schedule above, 6-minute headways, requiring 9 more trains (18 trains all in all) wouldn't happen until about 9 months later in spring 2016...
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Post by Philip on Apr 1, 2013 13:18:04 GMT -8
I think the full Expo Line will be able to handle 12-minute headways, at least in the beginning.
By the time the line really crowds up and people become aware of its existence, most of the new LRVs will have arrived.
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Post by bluelineshawn on Apr 1, 2013 19:31:16 GMT -8
I think the full Expo Line will be able to handle 12-minute headways, at least in the beginning. By the time the line really crowds up and people become aware of its existence, most of the new LRVs will have arrived. Agreed. On a related note, the blue line has very few spare lrv's even now so won't have any to load. But what about the gold line? Doesn't it still have lots of spares even in rush hour lined up next to the park? The green line might have a few as well. Metro may be stretched to the limit, but they should be able to run a full 12-minute service. Oh, and them thinking that Expo and the blue line always need to have the same length trains...can we move on from that already?
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Post by darrell on Apr 1, 2013 20:40:15 GMT -8
I think the full Expo Line will be able to handle 12-minute headways, at least in the beginning. By the time the line really crowds up and people become aware of its existence, most of the new LRVs will have arrived. Agreed. On a related note, the blue line has very few spare lrv's even now so won't have any to load. But what about the gold line? Doesn't it still have lots of spares even in rush hour lined up next to the park? The green line might have a few as well. Metro may be stretched to the limit, but they should be able to run a full 12-minute service. Oh, and them thinking that Expo and the blue line always need to have the same length trains...can we move on from that already? But don't forget that the Foothill Gold Line to Azusa will be opening about the same time as Expo to Santa Monica, so if they have spares now they'll have a use soon. And thnaks, Gokhan, for the LRV schedule update! [Don't you love finger-checks sometimes?!]
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