This approximately 40-acre operations maintenance complex is part of the Downtown San Jose/Santa Clara BART leg. The yard and shops complex is in Newhall, just south of the Santa Clara station expansion. Site development plans included a mainline track alignment, tail tracks, and a maintenance, storage, and service yard with multiple shop and operations buildings. The buildings vary between one and four stories in height and include a Blowdown Facility with inspection pits, Car Cleaner facility, Rolling Stock and Shops Service Building, Yard Control Tower, Non-Revenue Vehicle Shop, Maintenance/Training Facility, and Police/Cash Handling facility. Additional construction related to the site includes a train station platform, a retained cut structure under the existing UPRR, as well as access roads, parking, and other support facilities.
ENGEO’s scope of services included a geotechnical characterization of site soils and subsurface stratigraphy to develop geotechnical recommendations and seismic design criteria for the proposed yard and shop facilities, environmental review, and confirmation sampling and testing. Existing sources that documented contaminate soil and groundwater were key elements used in ENGEO’s environmental reviews for the layout of subsurface explorations. Additionally, this information helped identify locations of potentially contaminated soil that may be encountered during site development.
Geotechnical issues faced in this project included soft compressible soils and potentially liquefiable soils. ENGEO’s geotechnical studies incorporated the drilling of deep test borings, advancement of CPTs, and the design and monitoring of a test surcharge fill program. Furthermore, the studies included the analysis of the data and recommendations for soil improvement and both deep and shallow foundations for the various light to heavy structures. The exploration also helped develop seismic design criteria for the various yard and shop structures.
