Author Topic: Down a hole in Seoul... (Read 4289 times)

Railton · « **on:** November 13, 2008, 01:17:01 am »

I have been in Korea this week attending meetings with Hyundai Rotem for the new Subway system we are in partnership with.
The system consists of 18km or so of driverless track with six stations and connects to existing two other existing lines (currently 9 existing lines in Seoul, population 40M) . There are 12 six car trains running on the new tracks each carrying 600 people. The trains will eventually be able to run 110KPH with a maximum speed of 120kph except while they're in the tunnels where they are restricted to 90kph. Headways bewtween trains at the stations will be a minumum of 90 seconds (between trains)
Yesterday we had a site tour of the construction of Pangyo station and a walk down of the tunnels prior to the installation of rail, wayside equipment like track switches, proximity sensors and other junk like power of course. The tunnels were blasted out which was cheaper than using the boring machines. There was a shatpile of dust down there, even my camera lense got filthy and even tough there was great ventilation holes dug.
A tremendous amout on civil construction going on in development of apartments and condos above ground in this same Pangyo station area. I swung the camera around 360 degrees to try to capture it all but literally they are building a city overnight.
Railton

rrocket · « **Reply #1 on:** November 13, 2008, 01:26:23 am »

Wow...just wow.........

Any good Korean beers??

Railton · « **Reply #2 on:** November 13, 2008, 01:29:54 am »

More pics...
Railton

Iso Octane · « **Reply #3 on:** November 13, 2008, 02:08:53 am »

Cool pics! I fancy your line of work.

That's pretty fast for a subway system isn't it? The stations must be pretty far apart, or is there another line for more dense areas?

Railton · « **Reply #4 on:** November 13, 2008, 02:28:51 am »

Quote from: Mattesa on November 13, 2008, 02:08:53 am

Cool pics! I fancy your line of work.

That's pretty fast for a subway system isn't it? The stations must be pretty far apart, or is there another line for more dense areas?

Yes, 120kph for a subway system is fast, especailly without a guy driving it!!!
That's why we make the big $

Anything from 1 to 8 km/station. There are nine other lines currenlty.
Railton

Ex-airbalancer · « **Reply #5 on:** November 13, 2008, 06:21:10 am »

too bad the people looking after Toronto the last 40 years, did not have balls to build new Subways

safristi · « **Reply #6 on:** November 13, 2008, 09:01:51 am »

...sigh ....anuffer SOUL_LESS mega City.........................nice fer a weekend...HELL to live in............30Million...............Sao Paulo redex................just watched a movie about that city...............extreme poverty vs Extreme Riches does not a Liveable place make......

Railton · « **Reply #7 on:** November 13, 2008, 03:11:17 pm »

The population here is expanding very quickly. The city center itself is around 10-12M but they refer to some 'SNCA' or National Capital area that takes into account 30-40 cities which they are in the mdist of linking togther with their subway system expansion.
The pictures of the condo/apartments being built around Pangyo station in an earlier post detail their rapid expansion and development plans. All of those buildings are new and currently no one lives there. This is why the new subway must be on schedule to coincide with the openings of all those condos and apartments and why we are in the planning stages of the next two extensions of it already. We don't know what growth is in Canada compared to other parts of the world.
Francis tables an interesting point about big cities and the poverty that goes along with them traditionally. In the various cities in China that I've visited you do notice the have and have nots yet, not so here. Here people seem to be pretty happy with their lot (12 hr days the norm notwithstanding and satelite family kid raising and such) at least from what I've seen. There's not much imigration from SK into Canada.
Railton

safristi · « **Reply #8 on:** November 13, 2008, 03:16:08 pm »

SK...Saskatchewan

?.........do they have 7/11's there.....

cheap j/k?

mrthompson · « **Reply #9 on:** November 13, 2008, 03:39:34 pm »

Subway? I thought it was a network of underground bunkers under construction to protect the population from North Korean artillery.

DockMan · « **Reply #10 on:** November 13, 2008, 03:42:46 pm »

I'm envious, I have never been to South Korea. Looks really cool. The apparent pace of the expansion is staggering.

safristi · « **Reply #11 on:** November 13, 2008, 03:51:29 pm »

..Synghman Ree'lly......................

SkiBunny · « **Reply #12 on:** November 13, 2008, 09:29:08 pm »

Quote from: airbalancer on November 13, 2008, 06:21:10 am

too bad the people looking after Toronto the last 40 years, did not have balls to build new Subways

Toronto does not have anywhere near the population or population density to support that construction. Whereas in Seoul, hardly anyone has a car compared to canada where most households have one car (or more).

As for Korea, it's on the financial brink. Its currency has collapsed and lost almost half its value this year. As pitiful as the Cdn$ has been lately, it's gained big on the pathetic Korean won. Korea's banks are in the worst shape of anywhere except Iceland, and the IMF has identified Korea as most likely to be the next Iceland (bankruptucy).

Really cool new subway project though...

dr_spock · « **Reply #13 on:** November 13, 2008, 09:36:49 pm »

Cool stuff. Gotta love civil engineering...

Ex-airbalancer · « **Reply #14 on:** November 13, 2008, 09:47:01 pm »

The Bloor Viaduct was built in 1913, they had the foresight to built it to accommodate a subway.
"It was designed to facilitate mass transit; its upper deck accommodated trams, while both the Don Valley phase and the Rosedale Valley phase included a lower deck for rail transport, controversial at the time because of its high additional cost. The bridge's designer, Edmund Burke, was able to have his way, and the lower deck eventually proved to save millions of dollars when the Toronto Transit Commission's Bloor-Danforth subway, opened in 1966, was able use the Don Valley phase with no major structural changes to cross the Don River Valley"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Edward_Viaduct
Queens St station has a station for east west subway that was never built,
People in 50's thought there would be more subways in Toronto, a dream that was never finished

SkiBunny · « **Reply #15 on:** November 13, 2008, 10:00:35 pm »

It's a LOT more expensive to make subways (and almost anything else) in toronto than in korea, partly because of uncompetitive labour costs here.

I think that's why lots more stuff is being made in korea, while less & less is being made in ontario (unless the government subsidizes it).

Man-o-man that subway system they're making looks ours look primitive. And to think, we had a head start with ours in the 1950's. Sigh.

vdk · « **Reply #16 on:** November 14, 2008, 01:09:42 am »

Quote from: DockMan on November 13, 2008, 03:42:46 pm

I'm envious, I have never been to South Korea. Looks really cool. The apparent pace of the expansion is staggering.

me neither... maybe some day.. i heard them girls are nice..

@Railton: The TTC could use (your) hand, considering how unreliable and slow it is...

Squishy · « **Reply #17 on:** November 14, 2008, 01:27:45 am »

I worked as a track engineer in the TTC for eight months; during that time, we had real, service-disrupting system failures maybe once a month. Most of the service disruptions were caused by jumpers on the track, which happened roughly once a week (a lot more around the holidays). We did consider a driverless system around the time the SRT was built, but the general public reaction was "How is it safe with no driver?!" and the idea was shelved. The SRT is autonomous for the most part; the driver just operates the doors - and allows his or her presence to soothe the public mind.

*somewhat gory details below*

In New York the jumper problem is so bad that they may not even clean up the body if it happens during rush hour. They sweep it under the platform and allow service to resume, then collect the body after peak hours. So try not to peek under the platform if you visit New York.

Railton · « **Reply #18 on:** November 14, 2008, 02:13:55 am »

Most (if not all) of our Asian systems all have platform screen doors installed. They understand the value of this option. This of course also takes considerable effort to design and test such that the doors line up with the train doors within +/-30mm or so...and of course whis is done by the overall computer system not left to a driver to control. This option certainly keeps things safe on the platforms not to mention cleaner.

On occasion though you can have circumstances of 'skinny' people pushing and trying to keep the doors open to squeeze in and then end up getting caught between the doors and then the train takes off. Messy smears...
Railton

Iso Octane · « **Reply #19 on:** November 14, 2008, 02:17:45 am »

Quote from: Railton on November 13, 2008, 03:11:17 pm

There's not much imigration from SK into Canada.
Railton

On the contrary! There's a rapidly growing SK population here in Toronto. From almost non-visible, to a strip of Bloor St, to all of downtown North York in just 6 years. Love the food.

What's this about a light rail/street car rapid transit system for Toronto? How wimpy is that?

Author Topic: Down a hole in Seoul... (Read 4289 times)

SkiBunny

SkiBunny

vdk

Squishy