LANCASTER, Pa. — Amtrak and PennDOT clashed Tuesday over whether it is safe for passenger trains to continue running underneath the dilapidated Fruitville Pike bridge, which was closed to traffic unexpectedly last week. Train company officials are pressing the state Department of Transportation for a written guarantee that the bridge will not collapse onto Amtrak’s rail lines or commuter cars, reports the Lancaster New Era.
They warned that any further bridge damage could force the company to “stop train traffic west of Lancaster.”
“It’s about lives, for us,” John J. Diamonte, an Amtrak engineer, told PennDOT engineers during a meeting Tuesday afternoon. “We’re placed in a hell of a position.”
But PennDOT is refusing to provide the safety promise.
In a separate development, PennDOT is now weighing whether to build a temporary bridge to carry traffic into and out of Lancaster City.
The bridge would be open to two lanes of traffic by March – two months earlier than PennDOT’s other alternatives for construction.
The bridge was closed to traffic unexpectedly eight days ago, on Nov. 12, after inspectors discovered that cracks in a support pier underneath it had widened. The pier, which stands between Amtrak’s four tracks, holds up the Fruitville Pike bridge.
Officials from the train company said they are worried that the pier could fail and send the bridge toppling onto one of their passenger trains. PennDOT says it will not provide a written guarantee that such a failure won’t happen.
“They want a letter from us guaranteeing the bridge is safe for rail traffic,” said Mike Sisson, a PennDOT construction manager. “And it’s a little tough to guarantee something that’s unknown. I have no idea if it is or not.
“We told them, “You guys have your own structural engineers. If you feel it’s unsafe, then shut it down,”‘ Sisson said.
The trains do not move under the bridge at high speeds because the station is nearby on McGovern Avenue. About 20 trains pass under the Fruitville Pike bridge daily, reaching an estimated 20 to 25 mph.
But any vibration near the bridge could cause more damage to the already cracked support pier holding it up.
“One more failure and we could stop train traffic west of Lancaster,” said Gene Kredensor, an Amtrak official based in Philadelphia. Both Kredensor and Diamonte refused to return several telephone calls today.
An Amtrak spokesman, reached for comment today, said, “We are concerned about this bridge. However, at this moment there is no immediate danger and the railroad continues to operate normally.
“Amtrak engineers are meeting with PennDOT engineers this afternoon to make sure the bridge is monitored and safe for our continued operation.”
During Tuesday’s meeting, Kredensor and Diamonte repeatedly asked a PennDOT bridge engineer if the bridge could fall down at any moment. The engineer, Harivadan Parikh, would not make any promises.
“We can’t give them 100-percent guarantees,” said PennDOT spokesman Greg Penny. “I think if we were concerned about the bridge falling onto the railroad, we’d certainly be conveying that to the railroad.
“It sounds like they’re looking for a 100-percent guarantee. If they want to satisfy themselves, they can make their own independent assessment with their engineers,” Penny said.
“We feel that we’ve made the conditions much safer by taking the live loads off the bridge.”
Among the three options to reconstruct the bridge, most of the local officials appear to support the one that would put traffic back onto it by March.
The three options are:
Tearing down the old bridge by removing all of the abutments and piers at one time, and then building an entirely new pier the full width of the bridge.
The bridge would be opened to two lanes by Memorial Day, May 26. The entire project would be completed in September 2003. PennDOT appears to favor this method.
Tearing down the old bridge, and rebuilding the bridge one half at a time, opening the newly completed half to two lanes of traffic by Memorial Day.
Work would continue on the remaining half. The entire bridge would be completed by September of 2003.
Building a temporary bridge. Drivers could use Fruitville Pike to get into Lancaster City as soon as March.
The two downsides of this idea are, the entire bridge replacement project wouldn’t be completed until November 2004, and building a temporary span would add $500,000 to the $5.9 million project.
Local officials favor this method, because it appears to be the soonest that traffic could use the bridge.
Two dozen officials attended Tuesday’s meeting, held at the Lancaster County Courthouse.
They included police, emergency and fire coordinators, engineers and inspectors from Manheim, West Lampeter, East Lampeter and Manor townships as well as Lancaster City and county.
Lancaster Mayor Charlie Smithgall pushed hard for a solution that would reopen the bridge, one of only three northern gateways into the city, before the holiday shopping season begins in earnest.
“Not a one of these options suits the City of Lancaster,” Smithgall told PennDOT engineers. “With that bridge closed, we’re in trouble.
“These next six weeks are critical.”
The bridge engineer, Parikh, responded by saying that experts had considered keeping the bridge open, but decided it was too unsafe for drivers: “We concluded that it was not appropriate to keep the bridge open.”