New Traction Power Facilities West Bay Team Transports Machinery Across San Francisco Skyline

Last month, C3M and joint venture partners Clark Civil and Cupertino Electric (C3M Clark Cupertino) transported large boxes of equipment across the San Francisco skyline as part of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) New Traction Power Facilities West Bay project. A 106-foot-tall crane delivered boxes of heavy machinery and equipment needed to power a new substation beneath BART's Civic Center station through a 15-by-15-foot hole in the ground. The boxes, some of which weighed up to 37,000 pounds, contained transformers, air conditioning units, and rectifiers. The process took about 12 hours to complete, but the maintenance and engineering teams prepared for more than a year leading up to the event.

During each delivery, the team coordinated by radio with the crane operator. Four people waited in the hole to gently guide the delivery, sometimes with only a foot of space between the box and the wall, onto rolling wheels in order to transport the equipment to its final place. The space inside the hole was too long and narrow to move equipment around after it was delivered, so each item had to be deposited in a specific order and facing the right direction.

“Many agencies and contractors came together to make this happen,” said Gordon Wong, BART's principal electrical engineer. “It would not have been possible without the support and coordination of C3M Power Systems, Clark Civil, Cupertino Electric, Bigge Crane, and numerous other subcontractors, including San Francisco's Public Utilities Commission, Department of Public Works, and Municipal Transit Agency, as well as local businesses.”

The New Traction Power Facilities West Bay project is part of BART’s larger Transbay Corridor Core Capacity Program, which will greatly expand capacity throughout the existing transit system in order to accommodate increasing ridership. In addition to the new Civic Center substation, C3M Clark Cupertino is installing another traction power substation at the Montgomery Street station. The scope of work also includes structural, architectural, utility, and mechanical modifications, including demolishing portions of the concourse levels at both stations.

The project is slated for completion in fall of 2023.