Other People's Rail: Amtrak, commuter rail, rapid transit news & views outside New England


ConnDOT/Metro-North finally fishing the Waterbury Branch out of the fourth world with aggressive plans to renovate every station with full-highs. 5 stations for $106M (the 6th station is already funded/scheduled under a separate project) and full construction completion in only 3 years. Makes the T's overly long, overly expensive, overly fraught CR station renos look like the dumpster fire they so very are.
 

ConnDOT/Metro-North finally fishing the Waterbury Branch out of the fourth world with aggressive plans to renovate every station with full-highs. 5 stations for $106M (the 6th station is already funded/scheduled under a separate project) and full construction completion in only 3 years. Makes the T's overly long, overly expensive, overly fraught CR station renos look like the dumpster fire they so very are.
These are all single platform though, right? That works out to $21 million per station, which is about the same as what the MBTA paid for Freetown and Fall River Depot. 3 years is also not really impressive for construction times, Chelsea was done in around 2 1/2.
 
Interesting that Beacon Falls and Ansonia would have curved high-level platforms. I thought CTDOT always insisted on 100% tangent track for platform siting. Do they see curved platforms as “ok” here because the rolling stock they’ll be using on the line (Alstom Xtrapolis EMUs, converted into unpowered coaches) has end-point doors, rather than the quarter-point doors you get on Metro-North and Shore Line East trains?
 
Interesting that Beacon Falls and Ansonia would have curved high-level platforms. I thought CTDOT always insisted on 100% tangent track for platform siting. Do they see curved platforms as “ok” here because the rolling stock they’ll be using on the line (Alstom Xtrapolis EMUs, converted into unpowered coaches) has end-point doors, rather than the quarter-point doors you get on Metro-North and Shore Line East trains?
That's exactly correct. Waterbury would be the very last ConnDOT line to be electrified, if ever...so using vestibule-door coaches would allow them to berth at curved platforms.
 
For more information, the 6th Waterbury line station reconstruction, Naugatuck, is currently out for bid. Like the others, it's a single track platform, and estimated to be around $26 million. Interestingly, it is being moved from a curve to tangent track.
 
Tectonic Engineering notes the major component of the contract involves complex relocation of all underground utilities from 105 St. to 110 St. on Second Avenue at the site of the future 106 St. Station. Utilities requiring relocation include water, sewer, communication and electrical, as well as the shifting of a sensitive oil-o-static line providing high voltage transmission services for Con Ed’s Manhattan customers. Tectonic Engineering says the work will facilitate the subsequent cut-and-cover construction of the station and connections to running tunnels.
 
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