DYWI^® Drill System secures Trough Structure for Railroad, Reno

The Reno ReTRAC Project in Reno, Nevada, USA

Reno ranks among the US cities with the highest quality of life and the best environment for families. In the past few years the city's booming economy has also led to a strong increase in rail traffic, in particular in downtown Reno. With the Reno ReTRAC Project (Reno Transportation Rail Access Corridor) the city of Reno wanted to eliminate traffic jams, accidents and emissions at at-grade rail crossings. For this reason, rail traffic was relocated below ground into a 3.3 km long and 10 m deep trough structure along the existing railroad line.

Traffic studies had shown that vehicle delays were expected to more than double from 188 hours to 473 hours per day. In addition, the emissions of vehicles caught up in traffic jams would result in a significant reduction of the local air quality. Furthermore, the exposure of people living along the railroad line to noise would increase by 2.7 db to nearly unacceptable values due to slowly moving trains. The new trough structure, which is part of a primary East-West Union Pacific rail line, now provides smooth flowing passage directly through the center of downtown Reno on two mainline tracks at speeds of up to 100 km per hour.

The temporary retention of the retaining walls until the permanent walls were in place posed a special technical challenge for this project. Due to the unstable soils which were present throughout the entire project area, casing of the bore holes would have been required in order to install typical soil nails. The use of DYWI^® Drill Hollow Bar Anchors was ideally suited for such soil conditions. The DYWI^® Drill System used, which simultaneously drills the hollow bar anchors into the earth and fills the created cavity with cement grout, eliminated the need for casing, and helped the shoring contractor to construct a high quality, costeffective solution that played a large role in maintaining the project schedule.

DSI-LANG supplied more than 390 tons (about 184,000 m) R38 DYWI^® Drill Hollow Bar Anchors just in time for this technically complex construction project. The execution was completed within the stipulated schedule to the satisfaction of the owner. The city of Reno has been profiting from this new trough structure since early 2006.