The Virginia Railway Express (VRE) Lifecycle Overhaul and Upgrade (LOU) Facility was more than a decade in the making and allows VRE to maintain locomotives and railcars at the highest level of reliability throughout the equipment’s lifecycle. Its completion marked the largest single investment in a VRE station or facility in the rail system’s history.
STV, in partnership with Gannet Fleming, served as the lead designer for the 33,500-square-foot facility.
The LOU features a drop table to remove locomotive and railcar trucks and wheelsets, a wheel truing machine to reprofile rolling stock wheelsets, and an overhead bridge crane with two lift points and two tracks, each holding up to four locomotives or railcars. The LOU can accommodate technological advances to both railcars and locomotives, as well as the machinery used to maintain VRE’s rolling stock.
The project received an Honor Award from the Virginia Chapter of the American Council of Engineering Companies.
