“How do you eat an elephant?” This was the question put by HKL’s Director of Infrastructure and Equipment, Artturi Lähdetie, in a tweet on 8 May. Lähdetie was referring to the handover to HKL of the West Metro – when Länsimetro has completed its part of the work and testing has been completed, HKL will inspect the station facilities.
HKL’s Director of Maintenance, Toni Jurva, explains that the line has been handed over, station by station, since February-March. HKL has already been responsible for the rail’s electrical power and safety equipment since the autumn of 2016, from the beginning of test runs.
A separate, on-site inspection is carried out for each station.
“Our experts tour all station facilities – public spaces, staff facilities and technical facilities – making observations, documenting them and passing our findings on to Länsimetro. The starting point is overall functionality: the serviceability and maintainability of the site, and the reliability and, above all, safety of metro traffic,” says Jurva.
Test runs reveal deficiencies that would otherwise only be discovered years later
Before transferring station management to HKL, we perform yet another inspection in order to check on previous observations and possible flaws.
“The test runs have revealed various flaws, both small and large, i.e they have demonstrated their importance. The number of deficiencies has fallen as the end of the project has approached. On the other hand, test runs of exceptional situations have revealed unforeseeable flaws, which might have remained hidden for years when running regular passenger transport,” explains Director of Infrastructure and Equipment Lähdetie.
HKL has spent over a year studying the actual facilities, making movement within the stations smooth. In addition, almost all system training has been completed – even twice in some cases.
“The handover of line sections will being based on each station-to-station section. The handover of actual management to HKL will occur when the last station and its service areas have been transferred.”