Rail Cantech is committed to Canadian urban mobility
Rail Cantech, ETF’s Canadian subsidiary, is installing the rail systems for the pneumatic metro at the Garage Cote Vertu maintenance and storage centre.
This project is part of the strategic development plan of its client, the Société des Transports de Montréal (STM), which manages 68 km of the third-largestmetro system in North America (behind New York and Mexico City). Launched in August 2018, this three-year project will enable Rail Cantech’s teams to develop their presence in the Canadian urban transport sector.
A first step in urban transport
With the construction of the Côte-Vertu Garage, Rail Cantech’s teams are carrying out their first project on pneumatic metro tracks. Initially specialising in national rail network works, they are diversifying their field of activity and adopting ETF’s multi-trade model. To support Rail Cantech in this new challenge, specialists have come from ETF France and ETF Chile to bring their skills, expertise and experience in urban transport to the local teams.
With the Cote Vertu garage project on the orange line, another project at the Viau garage on the green line and a number of targeted initiatives on the Réseau Express Métropolitain (REM) project, Rail Cantech is becoming a key player in urban mobility for Greater Montreal and Canada.
The Cote Vertu garage, an investment in the development of the Montreal metro system
The Garage Côte-Vertu storage and maintenance centre will add 10 parking spaces for metro trains, as well as tracks dedicated to minor and medium maintenance. This expansion will improve traffic flow and reliability on the orange line during rush hour. It will also ensure increased service in view of the various extensions that will be built in the coming years.
Modelled on the Paris metro (RATP), the Montreal metro is unique in that it is 100% pneumatic and 100% underground due to winter conditions. This means that, in addition to laying the rails, the teams are busy installing the running tracks (concrete or metal), insulators and guide bars (for guidance and power supply), all with millimetre precision. In addition, a new track system on metal rails laid on concrete blocks will reduce maintenance costs and make the installations more sustainable.
This new type of installation, which is being trialled on this project, could then be adopted in future network extension projects such as the extension of the blue line or the orange line.
A project at the halfway point
Thirty-five metres underground, 20 people are working full-time on the site.
- Work on the rear station tracks, which will connect the future maintenance centre to the main track and the workshop track on stilts in tunnel 1, is now complete.
- The teams are currently working on the storage tracks for tunnels 2 and 3.
- Work on the connecting tunnel and the track system is expected to be completed next year.
- A carefully timed major renovation operation, involving the temporary closure of Côte-Vertu station, is scheduled for summer 2021.
Technical constraints mastered
- High levels of activity on the construction site complicate the project’s progress, coordination and planning. All stakeholders must organise themselves to work together without getting in each other’s way, managing the delivery and storage of various equipment and materials, all within a tunnel environment and under the strictest COVID-19 restrictions.
- In order to handle the logistics of components including track equipment weighing up to 7 tonnes within the restricted space of the tunnels, Rail Cantech has developed a PEGASUS-type telescopic rail-road forklift truck and has acquired a small and manoeuvrable UNAC 8TRR machine.
- In order to capture as much as possible the gases and fumes produced by aluminothermic welding operations, Rail Cantech has also developed, with the support and feedback from ETF France, a double filter extractor.
By expanding their activities in urban transport, Rail Cantech and ETF have made the promising decision to participate in major railway projects in Canada, with bright prospects for the future.
