MINNEAPOLIS — Work is to begin this month on a two-year project to replace Canadian Pacific Railway’s nearly century-old swing bridge over the Black River at La Crosse, Wis., with a lift bridge.
Edward Kraemer & Sons of Plain, Wis., will build six bridge piers and seven spans that will replace four piers and four spans, including a 310-foot swing span. Built in 1905, the truss swing span will be replaced with a bascule span to improve operations. A bascule span is hinged on one end so it can be lifted.
Work on the $15 million project is to be completed in March 2004, when the railroad will take the unusual step of shutting down for 72 hours to allow the swing span to be changed out.
“The final change out will require a great deal of coordination between the contractor, the railroad and navigation interests so the interruption to rail and barge traffic is kept to an absolute minimum. It is rare that we shut down the railroad for such a long time, but the scale of the replacement gives us no choice,” said Steve Hill of Minneapolis, CPR’s manager projects-U.S.
Also at La Crosse, workers earlier this spring finished installing a new center pivot assembly on the center pier of a 357-foot swing span over the Mississippi River.
La Crosse is a strategic point for CPR, with trains crossing four bodies of water between Minnesota and Wisconsin. About two dozen freight trains plus two Amtrak passenger trains a day cross the four bridges, which are on CPR’s U.S. main line from Vancouver, British Columbia, to Chicago.
Canadian Pacific Railway’s other major bridge projects this year in the Midwest include:
In Minnesota
Brooklyn Center — Replacement of a single-track, 72-foot trestle with a three-track, 250-foot bridge to improve operations and accommodate the Minnesota Department of Transportation’s widening of Highway 100, which will have an increased clearance for vehicles. Work on the $9.5 million state-funded project began in late March and is to be done in November.
Between Hastings and Red Wing — Replacement of a double-track bridge with a $2 million single-track span over the Vermillion River. Work began in April and is to be finished by the end of October.
Minneapolis — Replacement of two timber bridges with steel bridge spans on new concrete/steel pile abutments over Fifth and Main streets in northeast Minneapolis for $1.1 million between August and October.
St. Vincent Township — Replacement of two timber bridges in the northwestern corner of Minnesota between July and September.
In North Dakota
Minot — Replacement of a grade crossing with a bridge at 16th Street and Second Avenue Southwest where the city is building an underpass. Work on the nearly $1 million project, which is funded mostly by the city and state, began in April.
In Wisconsin
Between Oconomowoc and Ixonia — Installation of new bridge bearings and concrete jackets on bridge piers over the Rock River. The project began in April and is to be finished over the summer.
Milwaukee — Repairs to the foundation of an abutment for a counterbalanced swing span bridge over the Kinnickinnic River. The project will be done over the summer.
Signals & Communications
Work began March 1 and will continue through the end of the year on a $2.2 million project to update a 50-year-old system of control circuitry for wayside and grade-crossing signals over 26 miles of track south of the Twin Cities. Workers are burying cable and installing new control housings for the crossing warning devices and wayside signals on track from Rosemount, Minn., to six miles south of Northfield.
This work is in addition to annual rail, tie and ballast replacement, which occurs at various locations in CPR’s U.S. Midwest territory.
Canadian Pacific Railway is North America’s first transcontinental railway and is the only transcontinental carrier with direct service to the U.S. Eastern Seaboard. CPR’s 14,000-mile network serves the principal centers of Canada, from Montreal to Vancouver, as well as the U.S. Midwest and Northeast. CPR’s track feeds directly into the Chicago hub from the East and West coasts. Alliances with other carriers extend CPR’s market reach beyond its own network and into the major business centers of Mexico. CPR can be found on the Web at www.cpr.ca.