Rail/Transit
Hatch Mott MacDonald has engineered some of the most prominent rail and transit projects around the world. Our history extends from the beginnings of the London Underground more than 110 years ago, to the Channel Tunnel connecting the UK and France, to signature rail/transit programs in Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, and locations in between. Our association with many of these systems continues today – a testimonial to the relationship we build with our clients and to the quality of our work.
Building underground rail and transit facilities through urban areas presents many challenges, including variable subsurface conditions, complex rights-of-way, and existing structures and utilities. Of critical importance is the need to plan, design, construct, and commission these facilities so that public impacts are minimized throughout construction.
Engineering of rail tunnels requires a sound knowledge of the rail business – operations clearances, track design and maintenance, traction power, communications, and signaling. We provide added value to our clients through our specialized expertise in trackwork, rail tunnel ventilation, tunnel aerodynamics, train performance and thermodynamics, signal systems, communications and power distribution, and electric traction systems.
We apply our tunneling expertise to a broad range of transit projects, including urban transit, commuter rail, intercity rail, and freight. A number of innovations we've created over the years were developed for transit-related tunneling programs. Our ability to engineer underground openings using pressurized face tunneling machines in soft ground, TBMS in hard rock, and sequential excavation methods in rock, soft ground, and mixed face conditions, is proven through a long list of successfully completed projects.
Hatch Mott MacDonald's ability to offer the necessary geotechnical, structural, and tunneling skills required of all tunneling projects, and complement these skills with extensive skills in the specialist areas of track design, signaling, communications, traction power, ventilation and emergency egress, rail activation, and systems commissioning makes HMM a true one-stop-shop in the areas of rail and transit tunneling.
