Final South Sounder Project now with pics!

Starting this Friday, BNSF Railway will start cutting over the new main line relocation project which will move the normal main tracks from it’s current location to the new construction tracks between King Street Station and South Lander Street. The new main line will enable faster trains between Lander and Spokane Street shaving a few minutes off passenger train schedules.

At Lander Street, the main line will curve from it’s current location and shift to the right next to the Seattle School District building. The garbage cars and coal train approaching me were in the way to see the new tracks.

The schedule is as follows

May 1st – 3rd – BNSF installed new crossing gates at Royal Brougham and Lander Street which will protect the new tracks. This also includes quad gates at Royal Brougham to prevent pedestrian incidents. (Completed and Operational)

Friday, May 23rd – MUD Track cut over – This is the Eastern track of the 5 tracks at Lander Holgate Street.

Saturday, May 24th – Main 2 (Northbound track) cut over…since this is CTC (Centralized Traffic Control) trains can run on either main in either direction

Sunday, June 8th – Main 1 (Southbound track) cut over…read note above.

The Lander Main (Main 3 – Work Lead Main for Argo and Stacy Street Yards) is set for cut over June 16. On June 17, track speeds go up! F20/P20 will go to F35/P50 at Stadium. This means 50mph passenger trains between Holgate Street and Spokane Street.

At Holgate Street, shows the new Stadium control point and cross overs and new gates.

Looking the other direction towards Lander Street

The old Main 1 and Main 2 tracks be turned over to Amtrak for switching, storage tracks, etc between Royal Brougham and Lander Street. The photo below showing Sounder approaching on Main 1. The new main lines is on the left on the photo.

Once all of this work is completed, it is to be said that construction will start on the new Amtrak/Sounder maintenance facility. This will be a medium sized facility with a new State of the Art Indoor Wash Rack, Wheel Truing building, Machining shop that will handle medium service repairs, a new PIT track, and 7 more storage tracks that will hold a 14 car train sets. I’ll get more information on this later to make sure this is correct but the last I heard on this was 2 months ago from Amtrak themselfs.

We’ll see.

Want to see the progress of the Seattle Construction Project? Check out this post which has been following the construction projects since 12/31/2005 !!

Editors Note: I do not include the Lakewood Extension as part of the “BNSF South Sounder Project”