Overview
New Carrollton is a joint Washington Metro, MARC, and Amtrak station. Beneath the Metro station platform, a waiting room serves Amtrak’s Northeast Regional and Vermonter trains, as well as MARC’s Penn Line trains. New Carrollton station consists of three tracks. The westernmost two tracks (Tracks 2 and 3) have an island platform between them, with Track 1 having no platform.
The plans for New Carrollton Station include adding a second island platform (providing access to Track 1) and adding a fourth track. Timmons Group utilized a combination of laser scanning and conventional total station technology to perform field data collection throughout the survey to support the construction of this new side platform. Timmons Group deployed the Leica ScanStation C10 to perform the scanning surveys. This fast and versatile scan system collected up to 50,000 data points per second over a full field of view producing a dense point cloud with accuracies measured in millimeters. A total station was utilized to conventionally collect rail locations per Amtrak’s request. This data was used to verify accuracy of the scan data. This survey baseline was established along the corridor and will be used for future surveys and construction layout.
Approximate boundary of the survey was 2,000 linear feet along the railroad, centered on Amtrak’s existing platform and the full width of Amtrak’s Right-of-Way, 130 feet wide and the Amtrak station (below the tracks), 1,500 linear feet along the railroad on the north, and 3,500 linear feet along the railroad on the south side. Survey within these limits provided details for:
- Amtrak Right-of-Way line
- Shots on existing Amtrak survey control within or along the Right-of-Way
- Centerline and top of rail for all Amtrak tracks
- Wire heights and location for all overhead contact system elements (OCS, also called catenary) and catenary structure locations
- Augment LiDAR survey with conventional, total station survey of centerline of track and top of rail
- Floor plans of the existing station
