Engineering – Page 4 – Geeky Girl Engineer

MTA’s Linden Yard

Posted on October 8, 2017 by geek

I took another fun, educational tour with the New York Transit Museum. This tour was of MTA’s Linden Yard where they rehabilitate and replace subway track and switch gear. I have been on several yard tours, and this one was very different. There were no cars being repaired. It was strictly rails. There are three types of rail areas: underground, aboveground on the surface, and aboveground on a structure (elevated). They repair and build rail differently depending on where it is.

In some areas, they can lay continuous welded rail, which speeds up replacement. They weld long lengths of rail together in the yard and then transport them to the location to be laid.

A continuous welded rail is laying on the ground in the middle next to the stacked rails

The continuous welded rail is transported in specialty rail cars that are joined together and can transport eight of these continuous welded rail.

Specialty rail car for laying continuous welded rail

They use thermite to weld lengths of rail together. The process is awesome to watch.

Using thermite to weld two pieces of rail together

Using thermite to weld two pieces of rail together. Molten metal is pouring out the sides.

They also rehabilitate frogs, aka rail switches.

Frog rehabilitation area

A “frog”, switching track so named because it is said to look like a frog laying down with limbs spread out

They build complete segments of rail attached to the ties. For curved sections of track, they have to rip the ties at precise angles to give the rail curve whatever angle it needs for the train to take the curve safely.

Stacked rails on ties. Note that some of the ties are cut at an angle to lay in track curves. The metal plates used to join the rail and ties have a rubber bottom to cushion the train and reduce noise.

They also build the more complicated rail junctions.

A rail switch or junction being built in the shop

Fully assembled track lifted by crane

Rubber plates used to hold rail to ties. Rubber reduces the noise of the train.

Rail being curved by mechanical force in this machine

They also repair the third rail. Third rails are not welded together but are joined using a very thick copper wire that is welded to each segment.

Copper wire being attached to two third rails with thermite

Newly attached copper wire to serve as junction between two third rails

Black Hills

Posted on August 29, 2017 by geek

I have said it before, and I will say it again, the Black Hills are gorgeous. I have posted some of my photos in their respective blog posts: Custer State Park, Wind Cave National Park, 1880 Train ride, Crazy Horse and Mt. Rushmore, and Deadwood. Here are just a few more photos that didn’t fit anywhere because they weren’t in any particular park. Of particular note are three tunnels on US 16A that were made by tunneling straight through the rock for only the small amount needed for a (single) car to go through. That in itself is an engineering feat, considering when they were built, but also they were built to frame Mt. Rushmore. It is not easy to see in the photo, but with all three, depending on the direction you are driving, you can see Mt. Rushmore, and it is really neat. Consider also the crazy route that the road had to take to get to those exact angles to frame Mt. Rushmore.

Horse Thief Lake

US 16A, the scenic drive

Black Hills

Tunnel that frames Mt. Rushmore

Black Hills

Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Delta-09

Posted on August 27, 2017 by geek

Previously I visited the Minuteman Missile National Historic Site Delta-01 which was the launch control center as well as where the crew lived. Yesterday, I visited the Delta-09 site, which was where an actual missile was. The missile with the nuclear warhead has been removed, but there is an unarmed missile in it now, so visitors can see what it looked like. You can walk around the surface, which is a fairly small area, but you can see some of the support infrastructure like an antenna and manholes.

Missile in silo

Missile in silo with basket for a person to do maintenance

Antenna

Tracks to move cover

Missile silo is under glass room. Manholes for maintenance are on right.

Utility pole

In the photo above, you can see lines of vegetation. The entire area was mainly devoid of vegetation, but the vegetation it did have followed neat lines. I can’t figure out why, and I presume it has nothing to do with the site. I considered if the site had water pipes, perhaps if they were leaking, then vegetation might follow along the pipes, but I am fairly sure there are no water pipes. I know some plants develop root runners, but I have never seen any that are that linear. If anyone knows why plants would do this, I would love it if they would leave me a comment.

Custer State Park

Posted on August 27, 2017 by geek

I am probably prone to superlatives on my blog, but Custer State Park is, in fact, stunningly gorgeous. It has lovely grasslands where you can find bison, prairie dogs, and donkeys and probably others. Those are the ones I saw. I have to also admit that I am a little sketchy on wild donkeys being in a park, but I digress. The park also has the granite peaks and spires that make the Black Hills so famous. There is a manmade lake called Sylvan Lake that has the granite spires lining it and popping out of it. There is Needles Highway, which is an engineering feat of wonder, where you drive around the granite spires and in two cases drive through them in the most ridiculous small, just cut out the exact space needed for a car, tunnels. There is the Wildlife Loop where you can see the wildlife and just take in the gorgeous grasslands. My photos probably don’t do it justice, but if you are ever in the area, make time and go to this park.

Custer State Park grasslands

Buffalo on the grasslands

Donkeys (or burros) on the grasslands

Buffalo on the grasslands

Custer State Park

Needles Highway tunnel

Needles Highway

Sylvan Lake

Hive DC

Posted on August 5, 2017 by geek

Every year during the summer, the National Building Museum has a summer block party. They have had the Big Maze, the Beach, and last year Icebergs. This year is Hive DC. They used nearly 3,000 wound paper tubes that are normally used for pouring concrete in construction. Unlike at any construction site I have ever seen, these tubes were painted metallic silver on the outside and hot pink on the inside. The tubes were stacked and notched to allow interlocking. In a few places at least, it was evident they needed some reinforcement with screws and nuts and some tension wires for the highest hive. There is a xylophone in a small hive which appears to be made almost exclusively with construction material like tubing, canisters, and pipes. If nothing else, Hive is fantastic to photograph. There were so many cool angles, lines, and perspectives that were just plain fun to photograph.

Hive DC

Second largest hive

Largest hive

Hive DC

Xylophone

Hive DC

Largest hive

Hive DC

DSNY Manhattan 1/2/5 Sanitation Garage

Posted on July 22, 2017 by geek

A few weeks ago, I got a chance to visit the brand new DSNY Manhattan 1/2/5 Sanitation Garage with Open House New York. The multilevel building houses three different garages, one each for Manhattan districts 1, 2, and 5. Each garage has its own floor, and there is a shared area for vehicle repairs. The building has LEED certification and includes many green features including a wonderful green roof also. Across the street is a salt shed built to resemble salt crystals. Both the garage and salt shed have really nice, innovative architecture.

DSNY Manhattan 1/2/5 Garage on left, salt shed on right, with Holland Tunnel ventilation tower in back

Salt shed

View of garage from salt shed, all floors of garage are different colors to emphasize different garages and functions

Slats in gate turned to spell DSNY

View from office area looking south, metal fins help let daylight in but keep building cool. The Statue of Liberty can barely be seen on the far right in far background.

View from garage office area of Hudson River and Holland Tunnel ventilation tower

Garage area

Shovel and broom storage (there must be a story for the front broom with the metallic confetti)

Ventilation and other mechanical structures in the repair area

Parking in the garage area

Mechanical penthouse

Green roof with Hudson River in background

Green roof

View from green roof of salt shed

Salt shed packed high with salt

DSNY Central Repair Shop

Posted on July 4, 2017 by geek

A couple of weeks ago, I got the chance to tour the Department of Sanitation of New York’s Central Repair Shop with Open House New York. The shop is huge. It several stories high and a couple of blocks long. The place is amazing, and DSNY does everything in house. The repair all vehicles there: heavy duty trucks, cars, etc. They have a woodworking shop, metal shop, sheet metal shop, upholstery shop, and all other types of shops, as well as a vehicle emissions testing facility. No, it does not smell of garbage as all vehicles are cleaned before going to the shop.

There were vehicles of all sort there. DSNY has a wide variety of garbage collection and transport vehicles. This no doubt makes it more difficult to repair as the workers have to know how to repair a multitude of different vehicles. They also repair pickup trucks, cars, and as far as I could tell, anything with wheels. I can’t say if they repair bicycles though. It won’t shock me if they did.

Parked garage trucks

Vehicles are parked everywhere but allow for traffic

Duel collection and compactor vehicles on lift

The shop also appears to be where they store most if not all, of their heavy equipment, such as equipment like snow shovels only used in winter.

Snow shovels waiting for winter

Built in road treater for winter

Impressive parallel parking both width and height wise

I don’t know what the transport vehicle below transport, but I assume garbage. I have never seen one up close, and I liked how it has a built in conveyor belt to allow for removal of its contents easily. This is one of the reason I assume this is for garbage as opposed to sand for road. The sand would get caught in between the slats of the conveyor belt.

Garbage transporter

Up close view of garbage truck to show conveyor belt to allow easier off loading

In some areas of the shop, there are similar parts sitting around. I presume some are waiting repair and others have been repaired. Most are tagged. I couldn’t identify half of them, but they were all cool looking.

Big engines for repair

Parts waiting repair/disposal/use

In one of the metal shops was this very cool, high tech, precise machine with very cool bits.

Cool machine with fun bits

Bits of some type for this cooling looking machine above

Stacks of metal pipes and bars

Sheet metal shop

Metal shop

One surprising area that the shop had was a place after my heart, an emissions testing facility. When I was there, they had a MTA bus in the testing area. MTA pays them to test some of their vehicles, but DSNY does not test private vehicles. The testing facility had a huge roller that allows testing of their large, heavy vehicles in real life conditions. There something about the contrast of this very high tech testing facility in the middle of a building that in some areas has some rather low tech repair areas that I found amusing and surprising.

MTA bus on emissions testing machine that allows for real life conditions

Piped exhaust for emissions testing

Collated emissions for analysis

Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge

Posted on May 14, 2017 by geek

I have this thing for bridges. I love them. However, I have a particular thing for cable-stayed bridges. They are my favorite. I love the simplicity of them. They are modern, sleek, functional, graceful, and gorgeous, all at the same time. Boston has a cable-stayed bridge right next to downtown, the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Bridge, by which I-93 crosses the Charles River. So naturally, while in Boston, I took a lot of photos of this bridge. Here are just a few.

MTA Substation #13

Posted on April 16, 2017 by geek

I got to the MTA’s Substation #13 through the New York Transit Museum recently. The substation converts high voltage AC electricity from the grid and converts it to a lower voltage DC electricity that is used to operate subway trains via the third rail. The substation was originally built in 1904, and it fits into the category of “they don’t build them the way they used to.” The outside looks like a nice neighborhood building, and it has architectural aspects that I really wouldn’t expect from a substation. For example, an interior staircase has lovely decorative balusters.

Exterior of the Substation #13

Gorgeous stairwell inside the substation

Inside the substation are large rotary converters, specifically Westinghouse 1,500 kilowatt Rotary Converters. The rotary converters are what used to transform the AC electricity to DC electricity. Now modern solid state rectifiers are used to transform the electricity, and they are much more compact. The old rotary converters were used until 1999, when this substation was switched to the new equipment.

Westinghouse 1,500 kilowatt Rotary Converter

Positive and negative brush arms of Westinghouse 1,500 kilowatt Rotary Converter

Our guide was retired general superintendent Robert Lobenstein, who showed us around. He also showed us how workers used to have to do normal work, like changing switches and listening for crackling to make sure a wire was not live.

How workers used to change switches

We got to go into the basement which had all sorts of old equipment.

I have no idea what this is, but it is cool looking

We even got to go into a vault under the street where cables left the substation to go to the subway. The vault can be accessed through a door in the basement or through a manhole in the street. Normally this type of vault could only be accessed through a manhole. The cables go through conduits that are buried under the street. The cables are tagged, but it still looks like it would be difficult to find the right one if needed.

Cables leave the substation through the vault under the street with manhole access

Inside a manhole. The manhole access is visible in the center of the ceiling.

Back inside the basement, some of the equipment was still being used, but some was no longer needed, like some massive cables that were cut.

Old cut cables

Cables come in from the ground from the grid and are then split before going upstairs to the transformation equipment.

We then went upstairs were the new equipment was, including the solid state rectifiers and the biggest breakers I have ever seen. The breakers are in the circuit with the third rail. They detect surges in the third rail and cut off power before a fire or some other damage can occur. There is a lot of redundancy with the circuit breakers. Our guide turned one off, so we could hear how loud it is, but because of redundancy, it had no effect on the subway.

Circuits connecting to breakers

Breakers for the third rail. The copper plates are the third rail.

The solid state rectifiers are very different in appearance, at least, from the rotary converters. [I understood very little about this.] What amazed me during the tour, was when I finally understood I was actually staring at the third rail. The long copper plates in the photos are the third rail, which leave the substation and go to the subway. The positive rail is the equivalent of the black or red wire in a house’s wiring. The negative is the equivalent of the white wire in a house’s wiring.

Third rail leaves the rectifiers. The positive rail “POS” goes to the subway. The negative rail “NEG” goes to a central location to complete the circuit.

Also upstairs was this amazing old series of electrical switches, dials, and gauges. None of this stuff is used anymore, but it really cool looking. I liked how everything was tagged out, never to have the tags removed again and be turned on again.

Old switches that are no longer used

Gauges

Finally at the end of the tour, they turned on the rotary converter for us. Below is a video if you want to see it in action. It is almost hypnotic. During a portion of the video, you will see five lightbulbs on a wooden board sitting on the floor. They are being powered by the converter. After it is turned off and slowly slows down, the lights dim and then turn off.

Lowline Lab

Posted on March 13, 2017 by geek

Many people are familiar with New York City’s Highline, which has become a really popular spot with tourists and residents. It it is really cool, and beautiful all year round, in the dead of winter and in bloom. Because of the Highline’s success, some people came up with the idea of the Lowline. The Lowline would make use of of the abandoned Williamsburg Bridge trolley terminal under Delancey Street, which is right next to the Essex Street subway station. However, the somewhat radical idea for the Lowline is that it would make use of sunlight to light the space, which is completely underground. To help design and work out issues with this idea, the Lowline Lab was created. It is now closed, but luckily about a month ago I got to tour it.

I encourage your to click the hyperlink to my photos of the Williamsburg Bridge trolley terminal under Delancey Street because in order to comprehend the challenge of this project, you really need to see the space as it is now.

Delancey Street with Williamsburg Bridge in background. Essex Street subway station entrance can be seen on left. Abandoned trolley terminal is right below street.