The New York Metropolitan Transportation Authority has awarded a $98 million contract to RailWorks Corp. subsidiary L.K. Comstock & Company Inc., to upgrade the MTA New York City Transit Kings Highway Interlocking plant on the Culver (F) Line/IND 6th Avenue Line in Brooklyn, N.Y.
Work on the project extends 55 months with a targeted completion date in the spring of 2021. L.K. Comstock will install a microprocessor-controlled solid state interlocking plant with CBTC (communications-based train control)–ready equipment. (The Culver Line is equipped with CBTC and is being used as a test bed to evaluate interoperability among NYCT’s suppliers of CBTC. Siemens and Thales are currently the only two suppliers certified for CBTC on NYCT. The MTA in 2015 gave the go-ahead to a third supplier, Mitsubishi Electric Power Products Inc., to demonstrate interoperability with Siemens and Thales by installing its own CBTC technology on the the Culver Test Track. Click HERE for more information on NYCT’s CBTC initiatives.)
RailWorks Transit will perform related track and civil work. Both companies are subsidiaries of RailWorks Corporation.
L.K. Comstock is responsible for designing, furnishing and installing CBTC-ready equipment and testing and commissioning all equipment required to modernize the existing Kings Highway Interlocking plant. The interlocking will be controlled from the Church Avenue Master Signal Tower. The work will include communications for the interlocking plant and a new dispatchers office equipped for train dispatching and identification, closed-circuit television (CCTV) and fire alarm systems.
RailWorks Transit is responsible for completing the track work, including a new special work portion, and constructing a new one-story relay room, CBTC and other equipment rooms and rehabilitating other existing rooms. They also will install related plumbing, HVAC (heating, ventilation and air conditioning) and fire suppression systems. The new relay room will be constructed over the existing three-track elevated railroad structure and will be supported on new foundations, columns and structural truss framework.