(Photo by Applied Geomechanics Inc.)

In Reno, Nev., where "tilt" usually refers to out-of-control poker players, the issue of tilting has taken on a whole new meaning and spawned a wireless monitoring innovation as contractors dig a $282-million, 2.2-mile-long, 54-ft-wide by 33-ft-deep rail trench through the center of downtown.

To monitor buildings along the route, the "Reno RETRAC" project prime contractor, Granite Construction Co. Inc., Watsonville, Calif., awarded a $130,000 subcontract to Applied Geomechanics Inc., Santa Cruz, Calif., to install monitors on eight buildings on the alignment. They include three historic structures dating back to the 1880s.

The firm installed a system whose data could be read from a distance. "The concept was for everything to be tied together through computers to facilitate communication," says Doug Bleakly, AGI’s technical sales associate. But rather than wire all the monitors together with cable, AGI decided to go wireless.

Initial plans called for a real-time, central monitoring station, but permitting issues led to a three-hub system of 36 12-Volt monitors with transmitters. Project officials periodically drive by in cars and query the monitors, sometimes from several hundred feet away, and download the encrypted data wirelessly. "Although tilt meters are nothing new, this is the first time we have configured it for a Wi-Fi network," Bleakly says.

The Reno project has been in discussion for more than 60 years and is scheduled to finish in early 2006. It will eliminate 11 at-grade crossings and play a critical role in California’s $1.2-billion expansion of the Port of Oakland, which already sends almost 100,000 railcars through Reno annually.