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Post by Gokhan on May 21, 2013 14:41:29 GMT -8
Hmm, after reports of undead in South LA, it looks like Fix Expo's tomb is being moved to Clarington Ave and National Blvd in Palms: Previous location at Farmdale Ave and Exposition Blvd: Remember? That was a nightmare. Do you believe in undead? People in South LA who will actually ride the Crenshaw Line are suffering from the delays and those NIMBYs in South LA who will never ride the line are having a great time terrorizing the project.
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Post by Gokhan on May 21, 2013 14:49:45 GMT -8
The Palms/National/Exposition Bridge is now less than a foot over its permanent supports: However, some permanent spacing material needs to go in between. I am not sure if it's prefabricated or cured in place but it might take a few days to make it. The spacing material looks like in this photo taken today at the end of the line in Culver City: This is the current view from the end of the line in Culver City: The Palms abutment at Venice/Robertson. In answer to culvercitylocke, note in the picture how the falsework is coming at a slanted angle. There will be a lot more clearance over the traffic lanes than the sidewalk, with an arch-shaped bridge. Unfortunately there are still 5 overhead communication lines in the way! Expo had a meeting on Friday regarding how these could be relocated more quickly.
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Post by rubbertoe on May 21, 2013 16:17:28 GMT -8
Dwight seems to have gotten upset with the recent (05-20) changes that Yahoo made to the Flickr picture hosting site. I thought it was kind of nice personally. In any case, as of about an hour ago it looks like he actually pulled all his old pictures down too. I would imagine that any old links on this site pointing to his pictures will now be broken? If anyone hears about where they were moved to, please let us all know. RT
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Post by culvercitylocke on May 21, 2013 17:25:47 GMT -8
wow, I almost posted a comment yesterday about how fantastic the new flickr layout was. It really let you see several pictures at once, when you couldn't tell a damn thing about a picture from the old thumbnails. And the dynamic arrangement and scaling of the interface was flawless for me at least (on chrome). It looked especially fantastic with his most recent shots of the Sepulveda and Olympic bridges all laid out against each other. It was a really stellar and magnificent change on flickr's part.
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Post by Gokhan on May 21, 2013 22:37:12 GMT -8
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Post by Gokhan on May 21, 2013 23:07:40 GMT -8
Dwight seems to have gotten upset with the recent (05-20) changes that Yahoo made to the Flickr picture hosting site. I thought it was kind of nice personally. In any case, as of about an hour ago it looks like he actually pulled all his old pictures down too. I would imagine that any old links on this site pointing to his pictures will now be broken? If anyone hears about where they were moved to, please let us all know. RT expolinefan said: "Sorry guys, I just can not support the new Flicker look and I am boycotting Yahoo. If you want pictures back, support this boycott. I am looking for replacement service to Flickr."No love from expolinefan to Ms. Marissa Mayer.
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Post by culvercitylocke on May 22, 2013 8:33:42 GMT -8
yeah it's a true tragedy flickr made the pages load faster and the images easier to view.
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Post by Gokhan on May 22, 2013 9:52:48 GMT -8
From expolinefan: EXPO LINE FAN HAS NEW HOME for the EXPO Pictures www.ipernity.com/doc/expo-line/ I will Be Uploading Photos First then Adding the Text About Each one Later For Now Just the Photos from 2013 starting with the Ones from January This Progerss will Take a fue days to get all of the over 11,000 pictures back up Dwight B Sturtevant
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Post by Gokhan on May 22, 2013 13:53:15 GMT -8
Palms/National/Exposition Bridge was lowered completely to its permanent supports last night. It looks like the spacing foam is a special foam because it hardly compressed under load: The two bridges seem to have roughly the same clearance from the ground, about 15 ft. Note that the Palms Station entrance will be in the gap seen between the two bridges, as the center platform between the two tracks will be on that side of the street (west side): How the lowered bridge looks when you approach it:
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Post by bobdavis on May 22, 2013 16:53:21 GMT -8
Maybe I missed a posting, but will the steel bridge remain for the westbound track? One of the bridges that carries the Gold Line across the Pasadena Freeway near the boundary of Pasadena and South Pasadena was originally built for the Union Pacific Pasadena Branch, which was abandoned around 1969. And in Azusa, the ex-Santa Fe bridge over Foothill Blvd, which once carried the Super Chief and El Capitan, will have the eastbound electric railway track, after the new bridge for the Miller Turn is complete.
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Post by Gokhan on May 22, 2013 17:25:20 GMT -8
Maybe I missed a posting, but will the steel bridge remain for the westbound track? One of the bridges that carries the Gold Line across the Pasadena Freeway near the boundary of Pasadena and South Pasadena was originally built for the Union Pacific Pasadena Branch, which was abandoned around 1969. And in Azusa, the ex-Santa Fe bridge over Foothill Blvd, which once carried the Super Chief and El Capitan, will have the eastbound electric railway track, after the new bridge for the Miller Turn is complete. More like many postings. The answer is yes.
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Post by Gokhan on May 22, 2013 17:29:02 GMT -8
It looks like the spacing foam is a special foam because it hardly compressed under load: Perhaps the foam is regular foam and it's not supporting anything but only being used as a dust seal, with some actual metal spacers/supports somewhere inside.
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Post by bobdavis on May 22, 2013 21:41:50 GMT -8
At tonight's Gold Line Foothill Extension meeting, the subject of cars to run on the new lines to Azusa and Santa Monica came up. Thanks to Metro and the Breda fiasco (a term adopted from Italian). According to the GLFE report, the new car builder, Kinki Sharyo, was finally given the Notice to Proceed last August, but it will be about two years before the cars start to arrive, and production is estimated to be four a month. This means that about 20 LRVs will be available by Sept. 2015, when both Expo and Foothill are expected "to achieve substantial completion." According to the report: "Metro has stated that it needs 78 vehicles to support both the Foothill Extension and Expo Phase 2, but this number of vehicles will not be available until February 2017." Metro will be trying to accelerate the production rate, and there is also consideration of acquiring 15 used LRVs from the St. Louis system and refurbishing them. (if Metro is serious about bringing in "boomer" cars from St. Louis, it would certainly set the "railfan telegraph wires" humming.) As a side note, if the original Blue Line cars (100-series) are still around, they will be 27 years old in 2017.
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Post by Alexis Kasperavičius on May 23, 2013 6:01:40 GMT -8
...there is also consideration of acquiring 15 used LRVs from the St. Louis system and refurbishing them. Per the Wikipedia entry for St. Louis MetroLink they have 87 very similar looking cars, but made in Germany: Siemens SD-400 and Siemens SD-460. Which model(s) would be sold was not specified. They look like this:
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Post by masonite on May 23, 2013 8:08:56 GMT -8
At tonight's Gold Line Foothill Extension meeting, the subject of cars to run on the new lines to Azusa and Santa Monica came up. Thanks to Metro and the Breda fiasco (a term adopted from Italian). According to the GLFE report, the new car builder, Kinki Sharyo, was finally given the Notice to Proceed last August, but it will be about two years before the cars start to arrive, and production is estimated to be four a month. This means that about 20 LRVs will be available by Sept. 2015, when both Expo and Foothill are expected "to achieve substantial completion." According to the report: "Metro has stated that it needs 78 vehicles to support both the Foothill Extension and Expo Phase 2, but this number of vehicles will not be available until February 2017." Metro will be trying to accelerate the production rate, and there is also consideration of acquiring 15 used LRVs from the St. Louis system and refurbishing them. (if Metro is serious about bringing in "boomer" cars from St. Louis, it would certainly set the "railfan telegraph wires" humming.) As a side note, if the original Blue Line cars (100-series) are still around, they will be 27 years old in 2017. I suppose the key question is how many cars do they need to test. I assume the full amount to do the required full testing. This could be quite a problem. I don't think the Foothill Line can open until 2016 and I don't expect Expo to actually open before 2016 myself.
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Post by Gokhan on May 23, 2013 9:18:24 GMT -8
At tonight's Gold Line Foothill Extension meeting, the subject of cars to run on the new lines to Azusa and Santa Monica came up. Thanks to Metro and the Breda fiasco (a term adopted from Italian). According to the GLFE report, the new car builder, Kinki Sharyo, was finally given the Notice to Proceed last August, but it will be about two years before the cars start to arrive, and production is estimated to be four a month. This means that about 20 LRVs will be available by Sept. 2015, when both Expo and Foothill are expected "to achieve substantial completion." According to the report: "Metro has stated that it needs 78 vehicles to support both the Foothill Extension and Expo Phase 2, but this number of vehicles will not be available until February 2017." Metro will be trying to accelerate the production rate, and there is also consideration of acquiring 15 used LRVs from the St. Louis system and refurbishing them. (if Metro is serious about bringing in "boomer" cars from St. Louis, it would certainly set the "railfan telegraph wires" humming.) As a side note, if the original Blue Line cars (100-series) are still around, they will be 27 years old in 2017. Metro does not need 78 new LRVs to operate Expo and Gold Lines.Number of additional LRVs needed for Expo to Santa Monica: 3 trains = 3 x 3 = 9 LRVs Number of additional LRVs needed for Gold to Azusa: 3 x 2 = 6 trains = 6 x 2 = 12 LRVs (because of twice more frequent headways and 2-car trains) Total = 21 LRVs. Now, this is not the new LRVs but the additional LRVs. The number of new LRVs needed = The number of additional LRVs - The number of spare LRVs Therefore, about 10 new LRVs should be more than sufficient to operate both Expo to Santa Monica and Gold to Azusa. This is about 2 Kinki Sharyo trains on the Expo Line and 2 Kinki Sharyo trains on the Gold Line.Refurbishing Siemens LRVs from St. Louis doesn't sound realistic, as they need to replace the communication and ATP systems. Also, Siemens LRVs have serious reliability issues and acquiring used ones wouldn't be a good idea. The ones operating here on the Blue, Expo, and Green Lines are really poorly built with very problematic drive systems and malfunctioning doors.
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Post by JerardWright on May 23, 2013 11:57:03 GMT -8
Refurbishing Siemens LRVs from St. Louis doesn't sound realistic, as they need to replace the communication and ATP systems. Also, Siemens LRVs have serious reliability issues and acquiring used ones wouldn't be a good idea. The ones operating here on the Blue, Expo, and Green Lines are really poorly built with very problematic drive systems and malfunctioning doors. The reason for that is that is that our Siemens P-2000 trains had a complex spec equipment compared to the SD-400 and SD-460 which are more off the shelf and reliable equipment which probably makes it easier to include communications and ATP to operate on the line. San Diego and Calgary still have their original Siemens LRV's after 30 years and still run smoothly and operate reliably on their systems. Also keep in mind that while we're awaiting the new trains, the 52 Siemens trains will be having their mid-life rehab to fix those very problems. So they will need more trains soon.
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Post by Gokhan on May 23, 2013 13:07:29 GMT -8
The reason for that is that is that our Siemens P-2000 trains had a complex spec equipment compared to the SD-400 and SD-460 which are more off the shelf and reliable equipment which probably makes it easier to include communications and ATP to operate on the line. In any case they were poorly built. They need to build them to high-quality standards no matter what the specs are. The computerized relay system in the Siemens P2000's and how it interfaces with the motors and brakes is awful. Let's hope Kinki Sharyo P3010's turn out to be both modern and reliable.
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Post by Gokhan on May 23, 2013 13:10:11 GMT -8
With the new bridge completed, they have now started working on the Palms Station:
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Post by Gokhan on May 23, 2013 21:03:12 GMT -8
Thanks to idiots speeding in construction zones -- a no - no driving practice that could easily end up in an accident -- some guy crashed his SUV into the yellow-barrel barriers at Motor Avenue tonight. With the way people drive there at that blind curve in that construction zone, I expect many more accidents to happen. If you drive through there, be very careful.
However, the construction-speed-limit signs there are still missing, which probably contributed to the accident.
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Post by darrell on May 24, 2013 9:34:33 GMT -8
Thanks for all the new progress photos, especially on the National bridge jacking, Gokhan! I haven't made it by very recently, and you've vividly illustrated the milestones. And look who just passed 4,000 posts here....
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Post by Gokhan on May 24, 2013 14:13:28 GMT -8
Thank you Darrell! I guess 8x pro member now.
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Post by Gokhan on May 25, 2013 9:51:29 GMT -8
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Post by Gokhan on May 27, 2013 18:06:40 GMT -8
Photos unintentionally taken with flash, hence the strange white balance. Clarington Ave TPSS moving fast: Palms Station, looking east and west, respectively. Note the foundations of the retaining wall. The wall will be built this week, with National Blvd westbound being closed for a crane:
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Post by RMoses on May 28, 2013 12:06:22 GMT -8
Does Motor have any falsework yet?
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Post by Gokhan on May 28, 2013 12:43:59 GMT -8
Does Motor have any falsework yet? No, only some formwork to widen the top portion of the abutment. I am not sure if they will also widen the vertical section. Abutments need to be widened before they can start the falsework for the superstructure. The work there has been really slow.
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Post by Gokhan on May 28, 2013 12:57:22 GMT -8
Today's photo again came with awful white balance and it turned out that it was accidentally set to fluorescent lighting. I tried to correct it a little bit afterwards. Anyway, here is the progression of the falsework at Venice/Robertson/Exposition:
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Post by Gokhan on May 29, 2013 12:52:17 GMT -8
Back to photos with correct white balance. The former Palms Fire Station at Vinton Ave and National Blvd, which was built in 1952 and closed down a few years ago, is being converted into a three-apartment residential building. I had no idea it was a brick building until they started sandblasting it this morning and started peeling off the yellow coating. The old Pacific Electric Railway Palms Station -- Palms Depot -- was across the street from the fire station on the right-of-way that sits above the street level. The right-of-way goes behind the French high school, which was built a few years ago, and the station was accessed from the ramp next to the high school seen in the photo, situated just to the right of the ramp on the elevated right-of-way: Progression of falsework and formwork at Venice/Robertson/Exposition:
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f ron
Full Member
Posts: 222
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Post by f ron on May 29, 2013 15:37:47 GMT -8
The fire station apartments looks like it could be a pretty groovy space. More of this kind of reuse will make Palms a pretty happening place. That station is going to be a real boon to the neighborhood. There's a lot of development happening already in anticipation of the opening no doubt. The corner of Motor and National is pretty special already, I expect it will become more so in the short years ahead.
I had occasion to take a close look at the work on the right of way just east (?) of the freeway tunnel (the side that's not the Northvale trench) I was really suprised by the amount of work NOT being done. Aside from the track grading which is now deeply rutted by the heavy equipment there's practically no signs of anything being done there. Is this a segment that's affected by the CalTrans / 10 freeway business? It seems at a real stand-still there.
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Post by bobdavis on May 29, 2013 21:15:51 GMT -8
It's not like the old days (150 years ago), when the grading crews laid out the track bed and the track crews started laying track. Especially when dealing with urban infrastructure issues, it's sometimes necessary to build one "piece of the puzzle" and for any number of reasons move on to another segment and then return to build "step 2". Behind the scenes there are offices full of engineers in charge of making everything happen in the right order for the most effective use of money and workers.
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