Dulles Corridor Metrorail Phase 1

Project Description

The Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project is a two-phase, 23 mile extension of the existing 106 mile Washington DC Metro Rail System. This segment will connect the existing system in Northern Virginia to Dulles Airport when completed. The first phase is 11.6 miles of track and features 3 miles of aerial guideway. The prime contractor is Dulles Transit Partners which is a joint venture of Bechtel and URS. The bulk of this guideway was constructed of segmental concrete sections resting on high load multirotational bearings provided by R. J. Watson, Inc. In total there were 1294 bearings manufactured for this project consisting of 1254 Disktron Bearings varying from 115 to 610 Kips in vertical capacity. The balance of the bearings were RJW Spherical bearings with load capacities of 490 to 960 Kips. The bearings were designed for horizontal loads of 10 to 15% of the vertical load with a rotational capacity of +/- 0.02 radians. All bearings were designed with bolted connections for ease of replacement and were constructed as 15 separate drawing packages over a two year period. R. J. Watson bearings were chosen for their simplistic design, superior performance and ease of installation capabilities.