After over a decade, the subway system of Bahia capital city has been finally inaugurated, now under private management, with five stations – by 2017, 14 more will be open; the operator in charge of the network has already built 2.2 km of permanent tracks

 

Augusto Diniz – Salvador (BA)

 

Private operator CCR Metro Bahia, of the CCR group, promises that next September Salvador’s subway will start its commercial operation. The first stretch of subway Line 1 has been under assisted operation since the beginning of June. Line 1 links the following stations: Lapa, Campo da Polvora, Brotas, Acesso Norte and Retiro and it is 7.3 km long.

 

 

The company explains that assisted operation is standard procedure in subway systems and it targets on “making adjustments in the system, trains and tracks to optimize the service”. With the system under commercial operation, at least 50 thousand people/day are expected to use the line.

 

“We signed the contract in October 2013 and within eight months we were able to make the population’s dream come true, starting the subway’s assisted operation on June 11th, 2014. Everything, from putting the work teams together, training them, delivering the jobsites and high-standard services have demanded a lot from us within a short term”, states Harald Peter Zwetkoff, CCR Metro Bahia CEO.

 

Ongoing work

 

The construction consortium of Salvador’s subway composed of the companies CCR – the leader -, Andrade Gutierrez and Camargo Correa) has completed up to this month (August) some 2.2 km long of permanent tracks (approximately 1.1 km built on the surface and 550 m overhead), based on the maneuver yard at the station Acesso Norte as far as station Retiro, recently opened. Out of the 7.3 km of Line 1 operating today, 5.1 of the stretch had been built in the past, but failed to start operations, demanding from the current operators to refurbish it in order to put it into operation. That jobsite started to be mobilized in December 2013.

 

 

At the first stretch built, the method adopted for the jobsite of the tracks was the LVT (Low Vibration Line) where the crossties aligned in double-blocks are concreted on the slab – in the 5.1 km of lines that existed in Salvador’s subway the concrete crossties are set on crushed rocks. Permanent tracks are built on expansive clay soil, a characteristic of that capital city. As to the rest of the tracks construction the continuity of the adoption of the LVT method is under studies.

 

Subway station Retiro, overhead and all made with metal, fallows the standard of the other stations built along the line. It has a 5.8 thousand m2 area. According to the construction consortium, its structure has been made independently from the permanent tracks, which optimized the term of delivery. The integration terminal with urban busses has also been erected at an area next to the station, as much as a power substation (seven more substations will be built in the whole system).

 

At the slope that gives access to the tracks of subways station Retiro, beams left from the former subway jobsite have been used.

 

Subway station Retiro serves a highly densely populated area of that capital city. From that station one can see, at one of its ends, the construction of a viaduct and, in further down, earthmoving sites intended to continue the work at Line 1. Far ahead the construction work of another crossing is undergoing. Some dismantling work of 9 thousand m3 of rocks has been done at this path.

 

An operation and maintenance compound is being built at the district of Piraja to serve the whole subway system of Salvador. The site is already undergoing earthmoving and foundations are being set. The compound which has been scheduled to be inaugurated in April 2015 is to shelter the company’s workshops and its center of operations and administration.

 

Currently, six trains branded Rotem (which belong to south-Korean Hyundai group) roll on the 7.3 km of Line 1. More 28 trains of the company have already been bought to be used in the system and, by 2017, six more trains will be acquired, totaling 40 trains to work the network. Each one is capable of carrying 1 thousand passengers. The signaling system is branded Thales. The telecommunication and electric systems (overhead network) are branded Siemens. The substations are being assembled by ABB.

 

Line 2, to be built in Salvador’s subway, as disposed in the contract, will ride a significant part of the central garden of Avenue Luis Viana, better known as Parallel avenue, 18 km long, which cuts the city of Salvador as far as the border with the municipality of Lauro de Freitas, Currently, there is probing work being done in that stretch’s soil. The short deadline for the construction work and urban interferences are deemed the biggest difficulties in the project by the construction consortium.  

 

Delivery of stations

 

At the beginning of next year two new stations will be added to the system: Bom Jua and Piraja. The line will be 11 km long. In October 2015 Line 2’s first stretch should be delivered, 2.2 km long, which will go from subway station Acesso Norte (connection with Line 1) to subway station Rodoviaria – between them station Detran will be located. At that same period, station Bonoco will be incorporated to Line 1 – it will run between stations Brotas and Acesso Norte, both already inaugurated.

 

In April 2016, the second stretch of Line 2 will be delivered, between stations Rodoviaria and Pituacu, including four new stations: Pernambues, Imbui, CAB and Pituacu.

 

In October 2016 the third stretch of Line 2 will be delivered, between stations Pituacu and Mussurunga, including other four new stations: Flamboyant, Tamburugy, Bairro da Paz and Mussurunga.

 

In April 2017, station Aeroporto will be delivered, thus completing the 19 stations disposed in the concession contract – by then over 500 thousand people/day will be using the system.

 

In total, Line 1 will have eight stations and a 12.2 km extension: 1.6 km of underground stretches, 4 km of overhead tracks and 6.6 km on the surface. At Line 1‘s stretch, already in operation, stations Lapa and Campos da Polvora are underground; Brotas is overhead; Acesso Norte was built on the surface and Retiro is also overhead.

 

Line 2 will have 12 stations, will be 21.2 km long, with overhead and surface stretches. CCR Metro Bahia intends to preset the government a technical-economic feasibility study for future extension of Line 1, between stations Piraja and Cajazeiras/Aguas Claras. The concession contract also disposes a possible extension of Line 2, between stations Aeroporto and Lauro de Freitas.

 

Should those extensions be implemented, the subway system will have the addition of 22 stations and will be 41.8 km long, out of which 17.6 km of Line 1 and 24.2 km of Line 2. CCR Metro Bahia is also in charge of administrating the bus integration terminal at Mussurunga, Iguatemi, Piraja and Rodoviaria, which are interconnected with the subway system and will be refurbished and increased. The ot
her five integration terminals will be built by the consortium, and one of them has already been delivered – Retiro.

 

The subway system is under a 30-year concession granted by the state government to CCR by means of a public-private partnership (PPP). The contract disposes investments of R$3.6 billion. CCR Metro Bahia will invest R$1.4 billion and the government of the State of Bahia will invest about R$1 billion, and the Federal Government will pass on R$1.2 billion in funds from the PAC.  .

 

Over 4 thousand people are today involved in the construction and operation of Salvador’s subway system.

Fonte: Revista O Empreiteiro