Nine hurdles delaying arrival of Tri-Rail downtown

Steps needed to bring Tri-Rail trains into Miami Central Station are complex. They won’t be arriving for another year, as David Dech, new executive director of the South Florida Regional Authority, told two public meetings last week. The project was to be completed in 2017 but several factors have delayed completion of a link to the Brightline station.

The $70 million tax-funded project is to add more Tri-Rail commuter service to the 72-mile South Florida Rail Corridor. Miami-Dade County funded almost $14 million and the City of Miami contributed $7.2 million.

Although problems with the planned Tri-Rail station were known by March 2021, they were only made public in December. The authority in July hired Mr. Dech to lead completion of this and other projects.

“We are moving forward some of the hurdles that were really holding us up before,” he told Miami Today in an exclusive interview. “We’re not completely over, but we’re moving in the right direction.

Mr. Dech explained nine elements delaying the project.

■Negotiation of a contract with Florida East Coast Railway (FEC): The authority (SFRTA) is in conversations with the private company that owns the tracks to lower fees to be paid to use them during the training of the staff who would run the trains.

“We have to qualify some of our crews. That means they have to send personnel down to ride the train with our people to make sure we are riding the trains safely in their territory,” Mr. Dech explained. “There are some rules, classes and some training that they’re going to help provide for us, and all those come with some fees.”

The fees are not a one-time payment, as the authority would have to train staff as it hires. “We want to make sure that we’re representing ourselves well with some numbers that we can live with. We want to make sure that we’re not over-committing the agency for the long term,” Mr. Dech said.

■Training of staff: FEC is going to help qualify Brightline senior staff, who would later train SFRTA’s personnel. The authority already reached an agreement with Brightline on how much is to be paid to the company. The only missing piece is the fees under negotiation with FEC.

The training isn’t going to take long, Mr. Dech said. “It’s not an intensive process. It’s eight miles of territory, so it’s not going to take a lot,” he said. “The longer lead item now is doing some software changes.”

■Automatic Train Control System: The authority is now negotiating with a vendor to buy a train control system needed to operate the trains safely, per the requirements of FEC.

The system is a protection mechanism for railways that tells trains at what speed they are allowed to run on the tracks, depending on signals they receive along the route.

SFRTA removed all the switches receiving those signals from all Tri-Rail trains and is now negotiating with a vendor to get an updated software that would indicate to the trains how fast they can go on FEC tracks.

■New dispatch desk: FEC was requesting that the authority include a new dispatch desk to direct the movement of trains over the tracks. “Although this territory is short, it’s a pretty busy and active place with a lot of road crossings, with a lot of things going on,” Mr. Dech said. “There are some additional responsibilities that we’ll put on the actual train dispatcher, and we want to make sure that all those things can be done safely, and that might require some additional people.”

■Platform issues: Brightline has been working on resolving issues in the platform that were preventing the trains to get into the downtown station. As Miami Today previously explained, a vertical clearance issue was impeding the steps of the trains from fitting under the station platform.

There was also a horizontal clearance issue, caused by building a wall too close to the tracks and steps, providing minimum clearance for the trains to pass.

Mr. Dech said Brightline was at the station two weeks ago getting ready to pour the cement into the platform as part of the work to resolve the issues. “I have confidence that the platform will be ready before we’re ready to go in,” he said.

■Exposed rebar: Back in August 2019, SFRTA identified exposed rebar in the station. RC consultant recommended a sonar test to determine whether the repair was properly done and to locate any other possible material defects.

The test was completed and found that the passenger platforms were not installed with the proper quality controls in place but there are no safety issues. “There might be some increased maintenance costs later on. From what I understand, I’m not an expert on concrete, but it’s nothing that’s going to prevent us from being able to open a new station,” Mr. Dech said.

“We’re not talking about millions of dollars. As long as it’s properly maintained, we won’t have any issues,” he added.

■Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) compliance: SFRTA planned to use Brookville Locomotives to meet the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Tier 3 standards, which are the US emission guidelines for newly manufactured railway locomotives. The company missed the deadline to get certified by EPA so it got only a “certified” designation.

Mr. Dech told the newspaper that Brookville is complying with waivers. SFRTA signed a contract with Herzog, their operations contractor, to overhaul the locomotives and rebuild all the emission systems. “I don’t anticipate there being any issues there,” he said.

■Bridges: Tri-Rail’s consultant recommended a 200% live load impact factor for the bridges and the viaduct infrastructure to carry the trains.

Brightline built these at a 20% factor. As the newspaper reported in May, a Florida Department of Transportation review concluded that the impact factor that Brightline USED was appropriate and didn’t raise safety concerns based on the maximum allowable speed of the trains and the loading of the bridges.

■New Starts checklist: The authority is working with the Federal Railroad Administration to complete a checklist of about 80 requirements prior to being able to bring the trains to the station. The Florida Department of Transportation, Brightline, the administration and its own consultants have been involved to narrow the list to just a few items, Mr. Dech said.

So far, Mr. Dech qualifies the negotiations with Brightline and FEC as positive and productive. He said he is confident an end will be in sight for 2023.

“We’ve got some really quality conversations going on between us and our partners and Brightline and FEC, and I think that’s one of the things that we were missing before,” he said.