In Helsinki, an extraordinary closure will be implemented in the summer: the Metro will close Rautatintor for months. HS found out if drastic action is necessary.
Metro traffic is in Helsinki in the summer, confused for months. Metro trains will not run to or even past the Rautatientori metro station at all for three months.
The traffic stoppage is so huge that passengers have questions.
Does Helsinki's most important station have to be closed completely? Is there no way to speed up the work? Would it be possible to work only on weekends, and on weekdays metro trains would run between east and west?
Even if the renovation is necessary due to fire safety, it is difficult for an ordinary person to understand why it could not be done without interrupting traffic.
HS therefore made a field trip to the station. The project manager was the guide Susanna Saloranta About urban traffic in the capital region.
Quickly it turns out that a huge number of central systems in the metro station run through the roof structures. Electricity, lighting, alarms, security technology, ventilation, sprinkler system.
Therefore, the renovation means dismantling the entire lower ceiling of the station from Kompassitori past the escalators and platforms all the way to the subway tracks.
The scaffolding needed to dismantle and renew the roof structures is so large that people cannot be allowed to walk among them for safety reasons.
There are scaffolding from the escalators all the way to the edge of the platform and the rails of subway trains. The escalators will not be renewed in this renovation.
Since the lighting is being renewed, construction site lights are in use in the construction area. For that reason, passengers are not wanted to hang out at the station. A new water main has to be built for the sprinkler system, i.e. fire extinguishing water.
People waiting for the metro train to stop at Rautatintori metro station.
The piers and a plastered ceiling following the shapes of the rock curves above the subway line. A new concrete beam is cast on the roof along the entire length of the edge of the pier to improve fire safety.
The working area is right on the edge of the pier. Therefore, for safety reasons, trains cannot pass next to it.
“The concrete beam dries as long as it dries in these underground conditions, and then the installation work of the new technology begins,” says Saloranta.
This beam is the mounting base for the new chimney made to improve fire safety. The lower surface of the front wall is covered with steel plates, and it is installed, among other things, with a strip of lighting that illuminates the edge of the pier and a sign strip on the side of the pier.
smoke forehead construction is just one rea
son why trains can't even pass the station during the work. Excavations are also being carried out in the metro tunnels themselves near the station, when new smoke doors are installed to prevent the passage of fire gases.
The over 40-year-old station has been made into an open, unified space using the old model. If a fire were to break out, it would not be possible to completely prevent the smoke from spreading to the busy Kompas level.
Now the idea is to make the wharf area its own smoke extraction area, so that the fire gases can be directed out in a controlled manner. For this reason, new doors are being built both in the subway tunnels and at the bottom of the escalators.
The old smoke doors in metro tunnels could close unnecessarily slowly in a real situation, because the smoke doors can only be closed on the spot. In the new western metro stations, the modern smoke doors are remotely controlled, and such doors are also being made for the Rautatientori station.
A new glass wall with a door and an automatic door system will be built at the bottom of the escalator.
Smoke doors in subway tunnels cannot be dismantled and installed one at a time, restored to traffic and back to work the next night. The doors are all replaced at once. After that, they are tested so that they work as they should in the event of a fire.
Passengers arriving at the platform.
In the tunnels we have to do excavation and installation work in order to get the new smoke doors and their new technology in place.
The renovation is not visible on the street above the metro line. In the renovation, new vertical shafts will not be made up to the street, but a new efficient smoke removal technology will be connected to the existing exhaust shafts.
Underground, the traffic stoppage begins on Monday, June 3 and continues until the end of August. During the traffic stoppage, the Kamppi metro station becomes the terminus of the western metro service. The terminus of the Eastern metro trains is Yliopisto metro station in Kaisaniemi.
Metro passengers are served by tram service between Kaisaniemi and Kamppi metro stations. Additional traffic has not been deemed necessary.
Railway Square the metro station's three-month stoppage of traffic is only one part of an extensive renovation plan spanning a period of about 12 months. During the traffic stoppage, work is done around the clock.
In the final phase of the three-month traffic stoppage, extensive system tests are carried out. Only when there is certainty about the system's functionality can metro trains be given a driving license.
Saloranta does not estimate how long it would take to renovate the metro station without traffic stoppages. Several measures to improve fire safety cannot be implemented at all if subway trains were to run to the station.
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