Northwest Rail Operating Facility, Dallas
The Northwest Rail Operating Facility project is a maintenance and rail-yard facility for the Green Line and future Orange Line of the Dallas Area Rapid Transit Light Rail System. The 34-acre NWROF site consists of five projects, or “lots,” each constructed by a different general contractor.
Archer Western’s portion of the work is a 90,000-sq-ft, three-story service and inspection building, a train car cleaning platform, a “Super Light Rail Vehicle” car-wash facility and paving.
The service and inspection building provides essential rail maintenance functions such as minor repairs and preventive maintenance. The building also includes administrative space to support rail functions.
The NWROF project required intense communication and planning in the field among five general contractors. Teamwork was essential and achieved through weekly coordination meetings and extensive preliminary planning. Precise schedules were required from all contractors, and these schedules had to dovetail in order for the project to succeed.
To complete the project, DART included 22 milestones in the contracts to map the flow of work throughout its duration, including the specific times each contractor was to complete specific work activities.
At each milestone completion, in-place work was reviewed for conformance to the requirements by a team that included DART, the contractor that performed the work and the “follow-on” contractor. Contractor coordination and access was critical because the five general contractors and their subcontractors had to work simultaneously in the same work areas the majority of the time. The interfaces were particularly difficult among the facilities, track and systems contractors.
Logistical issues were discussed as a team to determine laydown areas and access roads for the project. The project was completed on time and on budget with no claims.
Key Players
Submitted by: Archer Western Contractors Ltd.
Developer/owner: Dallas Area Rapid Transit
General contractor: Archer Western Contractors Ltd., Arlington, Texas
Construction manager: Act 21, Dallas
Architect: T.S. Orendain Associates Inc., Addison, Texas
Civil engineer: Huitt-Zollars Inc., Dallas
Structural engineer: Huitt-Zollars Inc., Fort Worth
MEP engineer: MEP Consulting Engineers Inc., Richland, Texas
