Metro-North Railroad on Monday, Sept. 8, 2014 announced it has completed rebuilding a switching control house in Cos Cob, Conn., along its New Haven Line, ahead of schedule.
The move allows full track control along nine miles of right-of-way between Stamford, Conn., and Port Chester, N.Y., for the first time since May 10, when a fire destroyed the previous control house, Metro-North said.
The work was "completed four months ahead of an initial, already expedited schedule," due in part to Metro-North "taking equipment that had already been built and was ready for installation at another complex that had a switch layout that was virtually identical. The equipment that was repurposed uses the most modern technology, reducing the amount of complicated wiring that had been damaged in the May 10 fire."
The resulting loss of the ability to switch trains from one track to the next forced Metro-North to "lock switches into place through a procedure known as blocking and spiking," with two tracks locked into hosting westbound trains only and two locked for eastbound service, effectively placing capacity constraints on the line.
Rebuilding a new control house would normally take 18 months of design, fabrication, installation, and testing, Metro-North said.
The final component of the restoration, shifting control from a temporary emergency wayside control house back to Metro-North's Operations Control Center in New York, took place during the past weekend.
"I commend all of the employees who have been involved in the effort to work around the loss of our control house and rebuilt it using an innovative approach," said Metro-North Railroad President Joseph Giulietti. "From the employees stationed by the wayside operating switches manually, to those who worked tirelessly throughout the weekend to restore OCC control of the switches, to those who conceived of and implemented this thoughtful and expedited approach, restoring full control took a safe, coordinated team effort with the involvement of many divisions of the railroad."