I agree with Jim's article whole-heartedly. It is very painful to have a delay of this magnitude. In the current atmosphere of "why is this taking so long," the answer is clear. The work must be done and it must be done correctly. The old adage of "haste makes waste" rings true here.
It is well to remember that the subway L line's East-River tunnel was also devastated by Sandy. Renovation at this level was proposed, but engineers found a better way and did it in a short period of time and much lower expense. So far, that has been extraordinarily successful. I understand that using that technology was rejected by Amtrak, and maybe it was in fact inapplicable, but I never saw or heard what the arguments against it were.
The reasons a bare-bones reconstruction was decided upon might have to do with Amtrak's plan to run through service of Amtrak trains arriving from NJ to Penn Station through the new tunnel into Long Island. Thus, one would (presumably) be able to get on an Amtrak train someplace in Long Island (Jamaica? Ronkonkoma?) and travel to, say, DC without changing trains. That is a laudable goal. The heavy, concentrated weight of a locomotive engine places greater stress on tunnel infrastructure than does the distributed weight of a commuter-rail train. This might have to do with the reason a bare-bones rebuild was selected.
But it would be good to hear from the horse's mouth what the rationale was. (Not horse's -- I meant the steam engine's mouth. No, the diesel's mouth. No, the electric locomotive's mouth....😊)
Simply and non-technically stated, the repair methods for the L train tunnel did not apply or were wholly insufficient to address the damage to the Line 1/Line 2 tunnels. In an application such as this, the concrete mix design is crucial. The L train tunnels did not have such high requirements for its materials. When you introduce curing accelerant admixtures into concrete, sure, it cures quicker, but it also introduces an exponentially greater level of risk of side effects.
There is no overhead catenary in the L train tunnels either. Remember the Boston “Big Dig” tunnel ceiling panel collapse? That was a failure of roof anchors after a year and change in service. Granted the catenary system weighs a bit less than a precast concrete ceiling panel, but the danger is still there. This is not something you want to come back and have to fix later.
A night-and-weekend work schedule would have taken ten years.
The L train has some semblance of redundancy with other subway lines.
I agree with Jim's article whole-heartedly. It is very painful to have a delay of this magnitude. In the current atmosphere of "why is this taking so long," the answer is clear. The work must be done and it must be done correctly. The old adage of "haste makes waste" rings true here.
It is well to remember that the subway L line's East-River tunnel was also devastated by Sandy. Renovation at this level was proposed, but engineers found a better way and did it in a short period of time and much lower expense. So far, that has been extraordinarily successful. I understand that using that technology was rejected by Amtrak, and maybe it was in fact inapplicable, but I never saw or heard what the arguments against it were.
The reasons a bare-bones reconstruction was decided upon might have to do with Amtrak's plan to run through service of Amtrak trains arriving from NJ to Penn Station through the new tunnel into Long Island. Thus, one would (presumably) be able to get on an Amtrak train someplace in Long Island (Jamaica? Ronkonkoma?) and travel to, say, DC without changing trains. That is a laudable goal. The heavy, concentrated weight of a locomotive engine places greater stress on tunnel infrastructure than does the distributed weight of a commuter-rail train. This might have to do with the reason a bare-bones rebuild was selected.
But it would be good to hear from the horse's mouth what the rationale was. (Not horse's -- I meant the steam engine's mouth. No, the diesel's mouth. No, the electric locomotive's mouth....😊)
Simply and non-technically stated, the repair methods for the L train tunnel did not apply or were wholly insufficient to address the damage to the Line 1/Line 2 tunnels. In an application such as this, the concrete mix design is crucial. The L train tunnels did not have such high requirements for its materials. When you introduce curing accelerant admixtures into concrete, sure, it cures quicker, but it also introduces an exponentially greater level of risk of side effects.
There is no overhead catenary in the L train tunnels either. Remember the Boston “Big Dig” tunnel ceiling panel collapse? That was a failure of roof anchors after a year and change in service. Granted the catenary system weighs a bit less than a precast concrete ceiling panel, but the danger is still there. This is not something you want to come back and have to fix later.
A night-and-weekend work schedule would have taken ten years.
The L train has some semblance of redundancy with other subway lines.
I just want to say that I appreciate your response