I wouldn’t be surprised if this is what happens, but that also limits the proposed vision.
If you want to get angry enough to punch a wall you can read the thread on city data where 50 people are praising Duke for “putting an end to the boondoggle”.
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SMDH.
Ridiculus…
Regarding EM interference. How about using battery trains and hanging no wires through the Duke Hospital area? Charlotte has ordered trains with this technology for their streetcar.
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I’m sure there is some sort of EM shielding that can be put up. I understand the concern. But this is not an insurmountable problem.
The problem is the uncertainty around how much shielding and mitigation will cost, makes FTA uneasy. At least battery trains would have a set cost that could be programmed in as the “ceiling” for solving the EMI problem. If the cost of shielding is more than the cost of the battery trains, then go with the battery trains. And it can be offered to Duke as a backup plan to get them to agree. “If we don’t have a mutually agreed shielding plan by April 30th (for example) then we agree to use battery trains with no catenary wire through Duke Hospital.”
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How much would a battery-run train even cost? Seeing that there’s probably no U.S. manufacturer that makes something like that, I would think that Buy America would only make this even uglier.
Concerning the EMI issue, though… if Duke ends up building Faraday cage to use against electromagnetic interference, they’d have to gut out every room (if not building) with sensitive equipment just to build loops of metal. Heck, even that may not be enough depending on the robustness you need. Even if the costs of that checks out, I wonder if they can stand the politics of that?
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I’m not an electrical engineer. But what I was thinking was not to put a faraday cage around each sensitive equipment, but build some sort of faraday cage shielding around the tracks, kind of like a copper mesh tunnel or something. Who know what the best solution is? Maybe the battery trains are more economical. But even those would put out EM radiation I would think.
But the thing that pisses me off about this whole thing is that all this could have been sorted out months ago. Why did Dook wait until the last minute to raise the issue? This project has been in the works for years. They should have raised the concern up front and this could have all been part of the project design and budget.
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Are there DMU’s that can negotiate the tighter curves of this proposed system? This could solve this problem and be a cheaper alternative.
Even if they could, DMUs are bigger and heavier, meaning you need to build the foundations of elevated rail sections even deeper to support them. Because you already have to build new tracks from scratch (unlike most commuter rail), I’d think that would just make the problem worse. Plus diesel trains still have generators in them, which gets and uses power (i.e. electricity) using motors (i.e. magnets)… …so there’s that.
(Besides, don’t DMUs vibrate more, since they have more moving parts in them? Don’t forget Duke’s complaining about that too)
Also!!!
GoTriangle totally agrees with you.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/article226588524.html
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Charlotte’s streetcars will be Siemens S70 with battery technology, and they will be fully compliant with Buy America requirements: built in the same factory in Sacramento as the equipment for Charlotte’s Blue Line (also S70s). The S70 is basically the workhorse of the US light rail industry. Siemens equipment has proven reliable and popular. The ones Charlotte has ordered are shorter (for shorter platforms in streetcar use) but there’s no reason the batteries couldn’t be added to the longer version as well.
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Duke has declined to participate in further mediation regarding the proposed Durham-Orange Light Rail Transit project. Duke President Vincent E. Price, Chancellor for Health Affairs A. Eugene Washington and Executive Vice President Tallman Trask III wrote in a letter to GoTriangle on Thursday that the proposed DOLRT route along Erwin Road adjacent to the Duke medical center “poses significant and unacceptable risks to the safety of the nearly 1.5 million patients who receive care at our hospital and clinics each year, and the future viability of health care and research at Duke.”
The university restated the lack of workable solutions to its longstanding concerns related to the proposed route, and also released the results of an independent assessment of electromagnetic interference and its potential impact on medical devices in patient care and research buildings along the Erwin Road corridor. (See letter and report.)
Duke officials concluded, “GoTriangle has created a set of compromises that Duke is simply unwilling to accept. These circumstances, based on facts that we have no reason to believe will change with further review or mediation, will jeopardize community health, public safety and the future viability of our enterprise. Having concluded that your proposed DOLRT route down Erwin Road is simply not workable, we do not see any value in entering into mediation.”
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This is such a massive load of hogwash. Another blight on NC. What a waste of time and resources. DUKE: Please use your prolific research dept. and deep coffers to create solutions, not excuses and problems for our region.
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They should just reroute the whole thing down 40 towards Southpoint then up 55. Just completely bypass Duke altogether.
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Dook being the ultimate NIMBY.
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Exactly! They even admitted how stubborn they’re being by saying “GoTriangle has created a set of compromises that Duke is simply unwilling to accept.” Absolutely disgraceful.
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“We have determined that this project will bring a large number of people through Duke’s campus of means and dispositions we find… ‘incompatible’ with Duke’s code of conduct, and have therefore put together a vaguely academic sounding excuse to prevent this, presented with the level of patronizingly feigned outrage that could only come from Duke admin”.
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GoTriangle … please focus on the commuter rail from Garner through downtown Raleigh to downtown Durham. It less expensive, approved by Wake County voters and follows existing train routes!
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Yeah, I wonder if they will be allowed to divert the funds to the commuter rail project. This could end up being a blessing for that project.
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