I’m going to try my hand at imitating KP here in documenting CN’s MoW work in Oshkosh, WI on the Neenah Sub. In the big picture, the 1899 Swing Bridge over the Fox River will be replaced, the Oshkosh “Yard” will switch positions with the Mainline, and the spur at Blended Waxes (industry) will be redone.
From what I understand the Blended Waxes Spur work will come first and the bridge & yard projects will largely be at the same time. All pictures in this thread are from my Flickr pages and are clickable should you desire to expand on them. Comments and opinions are welcome and I’ll do my best to answer them.
This post will cover the work on the Blended Waxes spur so far.
July 14, 2011
The Blended Waxes spur as original. Seen from the 14th Avenue crossing looking southward. The WC (former MILW) caboose is used as a buffer car because the angle of the curve is very tight and the power CN keeps in the area can’t couple to the cars “on spot” due to the drawbar angle on the locomotives.
July 18, 2011
Work begins. The fence around the industry is brought down and base grading of loose material has taken place. Rock, ties and ‘stick rail’ is stacked near the project.
July 24, 2011
Machinery is brought to the area in the form of a spiking machine. Spikes and plates are also brought in.
Thanks for the pictures and commentary Dan. I haven’t been down by the bridge since early June. I usually don’t get past the north side of town ( Leons or Tortilla Flats).
Looking forward to seeing your photos of the replacement of the bridge and yard. It’s good that somebody (you) is documenting this for future railfans about the history of this area.
Thanks Don. I swung by today and not much had changed, the spikes aren’t yet all driven in but the derail was removed and I’m guessing they’ll finish tomorrow.
Thanks for the photos. Its nice to see an industry in Wisconsin putting some money into its rail shipping facilities versus scrapping an old spur and switching to trucks! Especially with the bad rep CN gets in by some. Keep up the good work. [Y]
I bumped into a Blended employee today who knows I like railroads, etc. She asked if I knew of their project…so I asked if I could have her email to send her a link to my folder of it on Flickr. I guess the company’s “brass” got to see them too…
The City of Oshkosh tossed a minor monkey wrench in the plans, or so I heard. The City wanted CN to do some serious and expensive reclamation and rehab work to the site of the RoW that was to be redone. The RR elected to do what I feel is an ambitious modification: build the new bridge in the same RoW as the old one. 16 pilings will be drilled, poured, built and then the new sections lifted/floated in after the old ones are floated/lifted out. I’ll post pictures when I have something besides stuff hidden by fence and tarps.
From the information I have there will be three “windows” when traffic will be shut down:
-One 12 hour window to replace the old south span with two new spans and a temporary track,
-One 12 hour window to replace the old north span with two new spans and a temporary track,
-One 40 hour window to replace the old center span with the new bascule lift section and the middle span.
Update time. Admittedly…there hasn’t been too many dramatic (to me anyway) changes as of yet. However, finally having time and remembering to take the pictures let me have these.
Some structural steel I-beams have been delivered onsite.
One of Kraemer’s (contractor) barges with an almost-ready rebar frame for a new pillar.
A close up of the south pillars under the north span.
A close up of the north pillar’s cofferdam under the north span.
The pillars under the south span appear to be “done”.
Although it is a smaller project, still it has similarities to the Burlington (IA) Swing Bridge replacement done by BNSF on the Mississippi River Bridge. It too was accomplished by establishing windows for Construction Operations. It was some thing on the order of $124 Million Bucks.
I’ve no idea on the cost, though I’m sure it’s not cheap. I’ve put out some inquiries to see if I can find out about when the windows for span replacement will be. That will be interesting to see, and I’ll try to do a before/after shot on those if I can.
Work started this morning at 7 and they may be pouring concrete on a new pillar today.
Thanks for the update! A project like that is quite a show to watch. You have to know there was plenty of organization and coordination in that project to put it together and bring in all those elements to accomplish traffic over the bridge in a relatively, short time span.
It took quite an effort to put together that photo album, and share it here. You deserve a “Tip O’ The Kromer Cap” ! NICE JOB! [bow]And THANKS!
You’re welcome Sam. I enjoy knowing what’s going on in my little corner of the world - and sharing is fun too. This was all done in a 12 hour work window. There will be another 12 hour window for the North Span…then a 40 hour window for the center. That’s supposed to happen in March 2013 if my source is right.
I am all for progress, and of course the new bridge should last a long time, but gosh, I really like the looks of the old railroad bridges, not real sure why other than they have the heavy industry look about them…ah well, progress…
Thanks for the efforts to bring that here, looking forward to the rest of it.
