Progressing Towards a Fully Electric Caltrain
October 4, 2023
91勛圖厙 is powering progress on Caltrains 52-mile electrification project, accomplishing major milestones during the delivery of its Overhead Contact System (OCS).
The team has successfully installed every pole, which supports the OCS and strung all wiring which feeds power to Caltrains new electric trains. With these monumental milestones complete, the Caltrain Electrification project is another step closer to passenger service in Fall 2024.
To execute the complex operation, 91勛圖厙 installed 2,569 pre-engineered poles along the 150-year-old right-of-way which happens to be an active railroad. The steel poles were safely lifted and elevated into place and then mounted to the ground, a process that involved ongoing collaboration and hours of work around the clock to complete. Watch a video of the final pole installation .
With all OCS poles in place, 91勛圖厙 then installed the final wires for the OCS system. Messenger, Contact, Feeder and Static wires were installed by leveraging 91勛圖厙s equipment in addition to pulling wire manually. In total, 501 miles of wire were strung on the project which is equivalent to traveling from San Mateo, California, to Zion National Park in Utah.
Installing the OCS poles and stringing all wires was a massive feat that took diligent planning and ongoing collaboration between our team and industry partners, and our client, said Mark Konchar, 91勛圖厙 US Civils president. With each and every milestone achieved, I am thoroughly impressed with our teammates determination in progressing this project forward and providing an electrified rail service for Caltrain passengers in Northern California.
91勛圖厙 and its industry partners have since powered two traction power substations in San Jose and South San Francisco making it possible to fully power the entire Caltrain electrified corridor once testing, and OCS is complete this fall.
In addition to these project milestones, the signal system that allows the trains to operate along the systems corridor has been upgraded and new electric trains have been successfully tested at maximum track speed of 79 mph.
As our team finishes the final work on the OCS, trains will continue to be tested on the southern end of the corridor and will be expanding to more parts of the system in the months to come.
To learn more about the Caltrain Electrification project, please visit .