Award

OCTOBER 2017 | 71 East Rail Maintenance Facility East Rail Maintenance Facility by NATALIE BRUCKNER-MENCHELLI T o say the East Rail Maintenance Facility (ERMF) is an extremely ambitious undertaking would be an understatement. This flagship project will literally transform the GO rail system in Ontario and is part of the largest infrastructure investment in the province's history. The new maintenance facility, which is being built on 70 acres on the south side of Victoria Street in Whitby, consists of 500,000-square-feet of buildings, 13 on-site storage spots for 12-car passenger trains, 12 spots for coach repair, 11 spots for locomotive repair, two preventative maintenance bays for entire 12-car passenger trains, a train wash, locomotive wash, wheel shop, tank farm, track maintenance building, administrative office building including a crew centre, 60,000 feet of track and 53 track switches. "The site really is a collection of specialized buildings containing very specialized rail maintenance equipment, complete with a network of track and signals that will operate as an integrated facility," says Metrolinx project manager Shawn Brown. To be able to successfully undertake a design-build-finance maintain (DBFM) project of this scale required extensive collaboration. "Since the early days of construction, the team has ensured constant two-way communication, which has been a critical component of the success of the project to date. Whether it is working through project risks or operational considerations, we have always been one team working together," says Meghan Mulligan, project manager, ERMF, Infrastructure Ontario. From a site perspective, one of the biggest challenges, aside from the removal of a road and bridge, was to fit everything in "with little, if any, room to spare," says Doug Rolfe, VP, civil operations at the Plenary Group. "The site is very constrained from a clearance perspective between the future road allowance in the north to the existing mainline in the south. Our design team, Stantec Consulting Ltd., was challenged to fit everything within the space, but we were able to find a solution by optimizing the layout of the indicative design provided by Metrolinx as much as possible, both from a track and buildings perspective." Andy Scrafford, deputy project director, ERMF at Bird Kiewit adds that building an entire operational complex required the team to think ahead. "We essentially have five buildings with one large main building on a constrained site and working to a tight schedule. Dealing with these complexities meant all the trades had to work closely together, often back to back." Brown adds that working adjacent to the rail corridor also presented unique challenges requiring a significant amount of planning, stakeholder reviews and strict adherence to railway safety rules to ensure both public and site safety. Due to the condition of the soil on the site, a geopier system was used to reinforce the soil, explains Maria Mingallón at ARUP, who worked alongside MGT Steel on the structural components. "Also, because shallow footings were required and a lot of the columns for the building fell on the same area, which put a lot of pressure on the foundations, we combined different columns onto the same footing to help distribute the weight. We had 500 footings in total. Using specialized coding we were able to make changes on the fly and ensure everything was ready for the technician to draw into Revit." The buildings onsite have been designed by Stantec Consulting to not only take into consideration future expansion plans but also target LEED Gold. Therefore, the project features a number of innovative sustainable elements. "What stands out for me is the amount of natural lighting that has been provided by the common exterior translucent curtain wall on the buildings," says Brown. "The main building also incorporates skylights to further enhance the natural lighting element. This will provide energy savings and create an interior atmosphere not usually seen in similar facilities." Rolfe adds that Metrolinx and Infrastructure Ontario have always made it clear that sustainable design is a priority for them. "Plenary and our partners also understand the value of sustainable design. I would say that water conservation is one of the really important and unique elements. The large surface area of our main building presented a unique opportunity to harvest rainwater to be utilized to meet the facility's water needs and minimize reliance on the municipal water supply infrastructure." LED lighting and occupancy sensors have been incorporated into the main building for improved energy savings. In addition, compressed air distribution (140 Psi) will help eliminate unnecessary run time on locomotives and conserve fuel and electric car movers will be utilized to save on diesel fuel and reduce emissions on site. One challenge with the main building was the request to substantially expand the second floor and to move certain elements from the third floor to this new space, PHOTOGRAPHY COURTESY METROLINX

• Cover