DenverInfill Blog

At about 2pm today, the conveyor system went into action. As a result, excavation of the bus box has resumed with a new process. A bulldozer pushes dirt from the floor of the hole to within reach of the big excavator which loads it into a hopper. The hopper feeds it to the first of six conveyors. Each conveyor hands off the dirt to the next until the dirt drops onto a growing pile near the top of the northeast side of the bus box hole.

While progress is steady, it will take quite a while to remove tens of thousands cubic yards of dirt.

For more photos of the new conveyor system, including some close-up shots, please see our Denver Union Station page at JobSiteVistor.com.

Later this year, all of the passenger tracks will be removed from behind Union Station to enable digging of the bus box hole that will go very close to the back wall of the station structure.  As shown in the photo below, three of the five tracks have already been removed and work has started on the fourth.  At the current pace, the only tracks to remain past next week will be those used by Amtrak’s California Zephyr.

In anticipation of removing the final set of tracks (probably late-2010), work is in the earliest stages to construct temporary tracks for Amtrak as shown in the following photo taken from Park Avenue, looking toward Union Station.  The elevated street on the right is Wewatta.  The crossing, elevated street is the HOA lane to/from I-25.

Obviously, Amtrak’s passenger terminal will have to move out of Union Station once the tracks are relocated.  The photo below shows the future site of the temporary station.  A passenger parking lot will be built nearby.  A pedestrian walkway will be constructed over Wewatta Street for passengers to get from the temporary station to the trains parked on the temporary tracks.

For plenty of additional photos, please see our Denver Union Station page at JobSiteVistor.com.

Work continues on the retaining wall at the site of the new light rail station.  In a conversation today with Hunter Sydnor of Kiewit, I learned that the ground surface will be raised to the top of the wall on the Union Station side.  This photo of the wall is from the Millennium Bridge looking north.

The light rail platform will begin at the north end of the retaining wall.  Another retaining wall will be built to the north of the platform and extend further northward under the Union Gateway Bridge.  The light rail station and tracks will be on the Union Station side of the wall.  Under the Millennium Bridge is a metal structure that houses RTD’s light rail signaling equipment.  It will be relocated to allow room for the new light rail tracks under the bridge.

I took the following photo a few weeks ago. It’s unrelated to this story, but I thought you might enjoy seeing this hardworking family watching over its newborn baby at the end of the day.

Today, I uploaded about 20 additional photos to JobSiteVistor.com.  Check them out at the tabs titled “Weekly Photos” and “Plan View.”  It’s an easy site to navigate, and it now contains about 100 Union Station construction photos, a few of which have appeared in this blog.