Committees 6,11 and 17 hold meetings in Toronto

摘要

On April 14, members of Committee 6 - Buildings and Support Facilities; Committee 11 - Commuter and Intercity Rail Systems and Committee 17 - High Speed Rail Systems, held concurrent meetings in Toronto, ON, Canada, concluding with a joint meeting of all three groups. Hosting the meetings was Metrolinx, the parent company of the GO Transit commuter rail system, while Committees 11 and 17 have historically held joint meetings, the addition of Committee 6 provided an opportunity to share information about Manual requirements in Chapter 6 that support passenger services. On April 15, Metrolinx organized a tour of its multiple projects in the Toronto Union Station area. Union Station is currently undergoing a transformation to increase its passenger handling capacity, as well as introduce new retail and exiting concourses to improve passenger flow into the central business district. Members were shown the new west concourse that has recently opened (see photo), the new glass train shed, new station tracks and platforms and the 1970s era east concourse that will close in July for reconstruction to be a copy of the west concourse. Notable in this work is the requirement to deepen the area under the station tracks by temporarily supporting the columns with a steel framework, removing the existing column footings and constructing new footings and extending columns to create the two levels of space required. All of this activity is done under continuous rail traffic. The group was also shown the new Union Pearson Express downtown terminal for the UP Express airport train that will commence revenue service on June 6 in advance of the Pan American games.