The photos you see posted above of sections of the Metro unfinished are now for the most part tiled and most of the tracks and electronics in place. Some stations are to the point of just waiting for the train to be rolled by...
Some stations are not ready and won't be for the 27 Feb initial date of service.
The tunnel you see is fully done with all tracks laid in already as well as electrical equipment in place. The service and parking terminal is 95% finished and some work is more about internal tooling than anything else...
Some of the train sets parts are already in the DR and the electric escalators are next in the installation line. Otis will be in charge of the actual installation of all elevators as warranty calls for it. All the required elevators are already in the storage buildings waiting for stations to be fitted with the water proofing, and full tests of emergency sump pumps to be done before it gets done.
Fiber optics and L.E.D lighting will be used in critical secondary redundancy systems.
The actual control systems is what's holding much of the work from finalizing, since it needs to be in place before some further systems are placed for some stations to be ready. The company hadn't count with the OPRET's ahead of schedule work in many stations and some systems are being placed in multiple stations to test them, instead of placing all into the stations already 98% ready for placement. In other words, they were not ready with all the systems at hand because work was done way ahead of schedule to OPRET's praise.
I don't see how the system will be ready for Feb 2008... Maybe mid April.
I visited the Alma Mater station back in Sept and later on Nov, to tell you the truth I was shocked with the speed in which things are going!!! Suffices to say you can almost feel the train was going to approach the station any minute at the speed the works are going!!!
I took some photos of the tiled stations but had to erase them as it was a no-no! I was there as a guest of one engineer and we traveled via the tunnel with guards along. The security at the tunnel and stations is almost military like.
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