The folks at the Gold Line Foothill Extension Construction Authority sent over the above pics of the overhead catenary wires being installed along the project’s tracks. The wires, as you likely know, deliver the electricity that powers the trains.
The above images were taken on the stretch of tracks that run in the middle of the 210 freeway just east of the Gold Line’s current terminus at Sierra Madre Villa Station in eastern Pasadena.
The Construction Authority, an independent agency, is building the 11.5-mile addition to the Gold Line that will extend tracks to the Azusa/Glendora border with stations in Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale, downtown Azusa and adjacent to Citrus College and Azusa Pacific University near the Azusa/Glendora border. The project, which also includes a rail car maintenance campus in Monrovia, is funded by Measure R, the half-cent sales tax approved by Los Angeles County voters in 2008.
Construction on the project is on time and on budget with work scheduled to be complete in about a year. The project will subsequently be turned over to Metro, which currently forecasts an opening in early 2016.
Categories: Projects
What’s with all the whining? Ever hear of Murphy’s Law? Who expects anything to ever be on time or on budget?
[…] Foothill Gold Line Extension Getting Overhead Wires Installed (The Source) […]
Is it possible it might open earlier? Based on what I have observed, they have done an incredible amount of work in a short time, the past six months I have noticed accelerated work. I’d like to shoot for a summer 2015 completion, and then hopefully MTA can open at the end of 2015……..I hope they don’t take “months” of testing.
I think it’s unlikely to open before early 2016. Even when construction is done, the Construction Authority must hand over the project to Metro — a not-super-short process — and then extensive testing and training needs to be done to ensure all the operators and folks in Rail Operations are on board and ready to roll when revenue service begins.
Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source
You also need rail cars. They are dribbling in right now but there has to be enough to operate and give everyone a great experience. You only get one chance to make a first impression.
Whos going to finish first place, Expo or Gold?
Lets have a vote, I say Gold.
Yeah Construction Authority!!! On time and on Budget! Go! Go! Go!
On time? That’s to be seen. September 2015 is only 12 months away.
On budget? Nope. The original price-tag of Section 2A was supposed to be $690 Million, but the Foothill Extension Authority got a $45 million increase okay’d in 2011:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_Line_Foothill_Extension#Budget
So it is disingenuous to call the project “on time and on budget”
Some of the money is covering a very big maintenance campus in Monrovia that Metro required the Authority to build. I have no problem with the Authority saying they are on time and on budget.
Steve Hymon
Editor, The Source
who actually cares if its on time and on budget as long as its built to help those who need it and HELP YOU get from A to B they over spent boo hoo they were delayed oh my god as long as its buildt next year its done and it needed to happen it has and its looking good