(The following story by Christinia Crippes appeared on The Hawk Eye website on November 28, 2009.)
BURLINGTON, Iowa — Cranes incorporated into the scenic view of the historic Burlington railroad bridge let area residents know construction is officially under way.
According to the BNSF Railway, construction began Sept. 23, more than a month before its projected start date. But most of that work was behind the scenes.
The concrete evidence is the cranes that appeared near the bridge earlier this month.
Steve Forsberg, a spokesman for BNSF Railway, said the contractors are drilling steel-encased staffs for foundation units, which will be the support structures for the new lift-span bridge.
“There will be a total of eight shafts drilled, four on each side of the navigation channel,” Forsberg said. “Those should be completed by the end of January, the drilling of the shafts that is.”
The new span bridge will increase the navigation channel for barges from 150 feet on each side of a support structure necessary for the current swing-span bridge to 307.5 feet.
Forsberg said the work will be done in phases and will be “fairly” continuous now that the visible work has started.
“There will be different things happening,” Forsberg said. “Most of the work is dealing with the fabrication of the new span itself, which will be done not in the river. What you’re seeing done here is some of the prep work for when the span is swapped out.”
Forsberg said construction is likely to stretch into early 2011.
During the construction work, there will be few instances of the train or barge traffic halting because of the construction. The bridge will be closed for 24 to 72 hours while the new spans are put in place.
“The whole point of this construction and how it will be done, is so that both trains and the river can continue to operate until the actual swap out of the span occurs,” Forsberg said.
The Burlington bridge project has long been on the U.S. Coast Guard’s list of bridges in need of repair, as it is one of the top three in the United States most often hit by barges or other towing boats. Between 1992 and 2001, the bridge was struck 92 times.
Congress slowly has been building up appropriations for the 118-year-old bridge. The lawmakers secured enough funds to get the project started, thanks to an injection of $28.7 million in stimulus dollars.
Along with the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds, Congress has built up enough funds over the years to total $55.5 million. BNSF will pay in 10 percent to fund the total project costs.
Burlington native David Duke is the construction manager for the project. According to a previous BNSF release, the prime contractor for the project is Ames Construction Inc., of Minnesota, but three local firms will be subcontractors.
About 120 people will work on the bridge throughout the construction process.
The project under way includes only the navigation portion of the bridge, though BNSF does have plans to replace the entire bridge. Funding has not been secured for that $130 million project, but Paul Nowicki, an assistant vice president of BNSF, said previously the goal is to do both projects around the same time.
The engineering and environmental work is complete for the second part of the project, and BNSF will put in $100 million for the project in hopes of securing the remainder through grants with the state.
According to a release by BNSF, the bridge is used by about 30 trains a day. The bridge opens about 300 times a month to let river traffic pass.