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  • Silver Line Dulles WMATA Metrorail progress/pictures

  • Discussion related to DC area passenger rail services from Northern Virginia to Baltimore, MD. Includes Light Rail and Baltimore Subway.
Discussion related to DC area passenger rail services from Northern Virginia to Baltimore, MD. Includes Light Rail and Baltimore Subway.

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 #747421  by Sand Box John
 
It appears most of the pictures in the power point presentations were also in the monthly news letters. I would have loved to heard the narration that accompanied those presentations. I especially like the picture of the forest of columns in Dulles Connector Road median on the north side of VA I-66. When I was by there in August only one column was under construction.

As to the short wall at the Wiehle Avenue station. If the plans they are using are similar to general plans shown in the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS) those short wall will have 7' glass screens on them that will extend the full length of the platform. The top of the wall is at roughly the same elevation as the station platform.

See pages 8-11 in the Wiehle Avenue station (4.34 MB PDF file) general plans from the FEIS.
 #747487  by JackRussell
 
The short wall is to the east of Wiehle however, and there shouldn't be a platform there.

I was hoping for more text in the presentation to accompany the pictures as well - the slides from previous meetings were more informative. The local media might have attended, so there could be more details forthcoming..
 #747614  by Sand Box John
 
"JackRussell"The short wall is to the east of Wiehle however, and there shouldn't be a platform there.

That wall is likely part of a retained fill the track bed will be on. The top of rail from where the tracks descend into the median of the access road west of Leesburg Pike to roughly 200' east of the east end of Wiehle Avenue platform is on a fill. The track bed is at an elevation roughly 5' above the pavement from where the tracks descend into the median (chaining station 1114+00) to the Wiehle Avenue over pass (chaining station 1308+00).

See pages 37-46 in Volume IV Chapter 3 Plan and Profile (54.4 MB PDF file), pages 13-22 in Chapter 5 Typical Sections (2.18 MB PDF file) and pages 1-2 in Chapter 7 Structural (5.37 MB PDF file) of the Final Environmental Impact Statement

Hope to make a trip over there sometime before the end of the year to take some more progress pictures.
 #750913  by JackRussell
 
There was a story in the paper yesterday - apparently the new Silver line stations will actually have public bathrooms.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... d=newswell

And on some stations the design constraints are forcing the bathrooms to be outside of the fare gates, which I suppose means that they are available to anyone who walks up and not just paying customers..
 #751196  by jamesinclair
 
JackRussell wrote:There was a story in the paper yesterday - apparently the new Silver line stations will actually have public bathrooms.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... d=newswell

And on some stations the design constraints are forcing the bathrooms to be outside of the fare gates, which I suppose means that they are available to anyone who walks up and not just paying customers..
Good. I enjoy the recent resurgence in public restrooms. They were plentiful before the 1940s and then all but disappeared, but are finally making a comeback.

"Silver Line bathrooms will be plentiful, with four in each of the 11 stations, two for men and two for women. Each will be private and accessible to the disabled. "

I do wonder why so many though?



"But in a design-driven decision that might make some riders and Metro workers jittery, bathrooms in three of the first five stations scheduled to open in 2013 will be outside the fare gates, potentially drawing nonpaying customers. "

So???? Theyre PUBLIC restrooms.
 #751450  by SchuminWeb
 
Yes, though Metro seems to prefer to have these inside fare control, based on the comments made in the press release about the Huntington Exeloo.

Otherwise, based on what I've seen on various visits to the aforementioned Exeloo, including discarded liquor bottles and paper everywhere, I don't think it makes a difference whether or not the restrooms are inside or outside fare control. People will still do things they shouldn't regardless of where they are.
 #752866  by JackRussell
 
I took some pictures along the entire route today. Some of them are decent - some are kind of blurry (on account of trying to take pictures from a moving car). Where is the heavy traffic when you need it :-D . There isn't a really good location from where to get a bird's eye view of the activity in Falls Church - I would almost need a helicopter or something for that.

There is no location from where I can get pictures of the NATM tunnel, of course, and I have no way of telling how long those tunnels currently are.

I cropped the photos a bit to eliminate irrelevant stuff, but I didn't scale them down to try and preserve as much detail as possible. As a result, some of the pictures are kind of large, and instead of hotlinking them here and slowing down page loads, I am just pointing you at a slideshow of photo album instead.

http://s451.photobucket.com/albums/qq23 ... =slideshow

The official site has a new photo that shows how much snow they got here..
Image
 #752993  by Sand Box John
 
"JackRussell"
I took some pictures along the entire route today. Some of them are decent - some are kind of blurry (on account of trying to take pictures from a moving car). Where is the heavy traffic when you need it. There isn't a really good location from where to get a bird's eye view of the activity in Falls Church - I would almost need a helicopter or something for that.


You need to get out of your car and spend sometime on the ground. Me, I’m not afraid to walk distances along the shoulders of roads to get to good picture taking angles. Some year ago I scouted Connector Road overpass at I-66. Good pictures of the flyover construction can be had from there. Also pictures can be taken from the Haycock Road overpass.

There is no location from where I can get pictures of the NATM tunnel, of course, and I have no way of telling how long those tunnels currently are.

I will see what I can get.

Had planned on going over to take pictures on the weekend of the snowstorm (12 20 2009). Should have made that trip 12 27 2009. I will make the trip 01 03 2010, provided it doesn't rain or snow.
 #753042  by JackRussell
 
Sand Box John wrote:You need to get out of your car and spend sometime on the ground. Me, I’m not afraid to walk distances along the shoulders of roads to get to good picture taking angles. Some year ago I scouted Connector Road overpass at I-66. Good pictures of the flyover construction can be had from there. Also pictures can be taken from the Haycock Road overpass.
Yes, the ones where I got out of the car were the clearest of the bunch. The shoulders aren't as good as they used to be for pulling over - there are tons of jersey barriers there now, and in many areas there is no shoulder at all any more. On the outbound toll road extension in Falls Church, the shoulder on the right hand side of the road still appears to be full-width.

I hadn't thought of Haycock Rd - in my mind it is too far back to see very much, but I haven't actually scouted it so I can't say for sure what I would see there.
 #753065  by Sand Box John
 
"JackRussell"
Yes, the ones where I got out of the car were the clearest of the bunch. The shoulders aren't as good as they used to be for pulling over - there are tons of jersey barriers there now, and in many areas there is no shoulder at all any more. On the outbound toll road extension in Falls Church, the shoulder on the right hand side of the road still appears to be full-width.

I hadn't thought of Haycock Rd - in my mind it is too far back to see very much, but I haven't actually scouted it so I can't say for sure what I would see there.


The ramps up to the east end of the flyovers will begin a few hundred feet west of the Haycock Road overpass.

Don't know what you are using to take pictures.

Image
From WestPark Drive overpass shot with a Nikkor AI 200mm f4 lens attached to my Nikon D70s body. AI series lenses are not compatible with Nikon DSLR bodies so one has to manually focus and set the lens opening. ISO 200, f32 at 1/500 of a second.

Image
From same location AFS 18-70mm f4.5 zoom lens at 44mm. ISO 200, f18 1/1000 of a second.
 #753116  by JackRussell
 
Sand Box John wrote: Don't know what you are using to take pictures.
My only SLR still uses 35mm film, and it seems like it would be a pain to develop the film and digitize the images. I am using an Olympus Stylus 400 (point-and-shoot), which for most purposes is adequate, and an SLR would almost certainly be better for this situation. With a faster shutter speed, one could get better photos from a moving car for example. I never cared that much for auto-focus - I guess I am old school.

I picked the Olympus mainly because I needed a camera with an underwater housing, which of course is of no real help here.

One other observation - there is still snow/ice piled up on some of the shoulders, so if you come out, wear shoes with good traction, and take care.
 #756070  by Sand Box John
 
Went over to Northern Virginia this passed Sunday (01 02 2010).

A lot more is going on sense I was last over there.

All of the column for the flyover bridges north of VA I-66 are done with the exception of the two that are suppose to use the footer that were built in back in the 1970s.

The pile for the abutment footers at the north end flyover bridges are mostly complete.

Grading has commenced over the entire length of the Dulles Connector Road VA-267.

Construction has begun on the columns in the media of the Dulles Connector Road where elevated turns to the west along Dolley Madison Boulevard VA-123.

Grading and excavation has begun at the site of the Tyson East (WestGate) station.

The contractor doing the Capitol Beltway hot lanes project working coordination with Dulles Transit Partners has constructed one of the columns in the Capitol Beltway VA I-495 Dolley Madison Boulevard VA-123 interchange.

Shoring pile for the cut and cover tunnels on the north side of Leesburg Pike VA-7 east of the Pike 7 (Pike Seven Plaza) station are mostly complete.

Utility work is still being done along Leesburg Pike VA-7.

No ground work for the stations or elevated along Leesburg Pike VA-7 has begun yet.

Most of the activity along the Dulles Access road is happening between Hunter Mill Road and the tail tracks west of the Wiehle Avenue station

Slide show 47 pictures.
 #756163  by JackRussell
 
Good pictures. It really does help to get out of the car, I guess :-D .

I found yet another website with related information:

http://www.dullescorridorrail.com/index.htm

Not much of interest there however - not unless you want to look at pictures of a bunch of suits drinking cocktails and eating hors d'oeuvres. There is a page with presentations here:

http://www.dullescorridorrail.com/presentations.htm

but the most recent one is from back in Sept. For reference, the other websites that are relevant are:

http://www.dullesmetro.com/
http://www.dullestransitpartners.com/default.aspx
http://www.mwaa.com/tollroad/about_dules_toll_road/dcac

They are still a ways away from building the actual Rt 7 stations - they need to shift the traffic lanes out first, and while the utility work appears to be mostly done in that area, they aren't doing much at the moment (esp near Tysons West where I am). Up the road, they are building retaining walls in areas where they will need to build up the soil level to support Rt 7.

I expect that any day now we will see the January status report - I hope to see some progress/pictures on the NATM tunnel. The project plan suggests that that tunnel won't be done until some time in late 2011, but they ought to at least be able to tell us how far they are.
 #756477  by Sand Box John
 
"JackRussell"
Good pictures. It really does help to get out of the car, I guess.


Took a total of 155 pictures The 47 were the best of the bunch. Unfortunately the pictures I took with the 200mm lens mounted didn't come out. ISO set to low for the f stop I was using.

They are still a ways away from building the actual Rt 7 stations - they need to shift the traffic lanes out first, and while the utility work appears to be mostly done in that area, they aren't doing much at the moment (esp near Tysons West where I am). Up the road, they are building retaining walls in areas where they will need to build up the soil level to support Rt 7.

Being that you are in that area you might want to visit the Dulles Corridor Metrorail project offices.
1593 Spring Hill Road,
Suite 300
Vienna, VA 22182
Last time I was their they had a model of the line through Tysons.

Image

I expect that any day now we will see the January status report - I hope to see some progress/pictures on the NATM tunnel. The project plan suggests that that tunnel won't be done until some time in late 2011, but they ought to at least be able to tell us how far they are.

Based on the pictures that the Washington published in this photo gallery on 10 18 2009 compared to the pictures that were in the 11 04 2009 project update, and their doing about 25' a week. Figuring they started the track N2 tunnel around the beginning of October and the track N1 tunnel was started after track N2 had progressed 150' Track N1 should be about 300' in Track N2 should be about 150' in as of today 01 07 2010. The length of each tunnel is roughly 1,700'.
 #760317  by JackRussell
 
Looks like no update this month. I suppose with snow and Xmas that it was a short work month.

One little tidbit - Virginia Power has been out taking down overhead power lines along the south side of Rt 7, and there are stretches where they have removed the poles from the ground. They seem to saw off the top couple of feet leaving stubby poles (perhaps to make disassembly easier??), and then come by later and pull the rest.

Out on the west end of the construction zone, they have pulled down some wires, but many still remain - there are wires running across Rt 7 in several spots and they need to deal with those before the rest can come down.
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