SACRAMENTO, CALIF. — At the American Council of Engineering Companies, California (ACEC) 2011 Engineering Excellence Award Banquet, Cinquini & Passarino Inc. (CPI) was awarded the Merit Award and Small Firm Merit Award for their unique implementation of cutting edge technology in the rail surveying market.

CPI teamed with HDR Inc. Engineering and Consulting to complete the civil, track, and pathway advanced conceptual engineering phase for 60 miles of the SMART District proposed passenger railroad. The railroad will ultimately provide passenger service between the town of Larkspur in Marin County and the city of Cloverdale in Sonoma County with a target date of operation set at Oct. 2014 for the initial segment.

With a one-month deadline to complete a top of rail survey for more than 60 miles of track, CPI convinced the design team to allow use of the Amberg Technologies GRP track measurement equipment. The goal of CPI was to maintain concise measurement with high productivity without sacrificing accuracy and to complete the top of rail survey in half the estimated time of conventional survey methods. The SMART railroad corridor was surveyed using the Amberg GRP at 25-foot intervals, including critical rail structures such as switches, frogs, culverts, bridges, and road crossings.

The results were outstanding. CPI saved SMART more than $120,000 and two months project duration by not utilizing conventional survey methods. The immense amount of data collected with the Amberg GRP proved to benefit the project and also established CPI as an innovator. CPI is the first surveying firm within the United States to use the Amberg GRP for railroad surveys.

For more information, visit www.cinquinipassarino.com or www.acec-ca.org.