A US$697 million contract to electrify the 84-kilometre Caltrain rail corridor, which runs between San Francisco and San Jose in California, has been formally awarded to Balfour Beatty.
At a ceremony on August 15, the Peninsula Corridor Joint Powers Board signed contracts with Balfour Beatty and Stadler for the infrastructure works and the new trains respectively.
This, the largest contract ever won by Balfour Beatty in the USA, was awarded by the Board as part of its Caltrain Peninsula Corridor Electrification Project (PCEP).
The current diesel-powered train fleet will be replaced by 96 new KISS EMUs that have been ordered from Stadler, improving the reliability and capacity of the route through 17 cities in San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara counties.
The contract calls for Balfour Beatty Infrastructure Inc. to design and build a 25kV AC overhead catenary system and construct two traction power substations, one switching substation and seven paralleling substations, which will also power the planned high-speed trains.
In addition, signalling systems will be replaced and existing facilities earthed. All this while 92 train services carrying 65,000 commuters travel on the route daily.
Due to start this autumn, the project will run until spring 2020, employing over 300 at the peak, including 50 apprentices.
Hopefully some of the electricity for this train will be from wind and solar power, like Calgary’s C-Train LRT.