Construction of a new lift span for the BNSF bridge across the Mississippi River at Burlington, IA has started ahead of schedule. I assume the Burlington BNSF bridge still uses a swing span, and the new lift span will widen the navigational channel.
http://www.sj-r.com/breaking/x215411777/Work-begins-on-bridge-linking-Iowa-Illinois
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Posted Nov 28, 2009 @ 02:33 PM
BURLINGTON, Iowa — Construction has begun on the Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroad bridge over the Mississippi River in Burlington.
The work began ahead of schedule to build a new lift-span bridge that will more than double the navigation channel for barges to 307 feet.
The Coast Guard has long wanted the bridge repaired because the span linking Iowa and Illinois is hit so frequently by barges. That happened 92 times from 1992 to 2001.
Congress has allocated $55 million for the bridge work. Officials still haven’t decided the full extent of work on the 118-year-old bridge beyond replacing the lift span.
About 30 trains a day cross the bridge. The span opens about 300 times a month for river traffic.
The current movable bridge is a 362-foot long swing span. The navigational channel will effectively double (the two channels to either side of the center pier), plus the width of the center pier itself. The existing navigation channels are 153 feet wide. The nominal end points of the swing span will become the nominal end points of the lift span – to do otherwise would require replacement or modification of one or more of the approach spans. BNSF requested stimulus funds in the TIGER program to pay for a portion of the replacement cost of the approach spans.
RWM
RWM, are you hearing anything about another bridge a few miles upstream, say, around Clinton?
The 362 long span should take care of most cases of hitting the bridge. However the 300 lifts a month means average of 10 a day. I do not know the rules for two tugs passing under a bridge but does that mean that probably once every 10 days an up river and down river tow will pass under the bridge at the same time? Does anyone know if now they ever pass at the same time past the center bollards?
10 a day based on a 12-month average, but 90% of the moves are within a 9-month period.
RWM
I’m assuming that they are rerouting all the trains that would have used that bridge, including Amtrak’s California Zephyr - anyone know through where?
Maximum closure windows will be 24-72 hours according to RT&S. Maybe some reroutes. Maybe not.
RWM
Still, 24-72 hours can be a lot of trains, considering 30 a day go over that bridge.
I guess if they were rerouting from Burlington they could go to Fort Madison IA, and then transfer to the Santa Fe Transcon there, and then transfer back to the old CB&Q at Galesburg IL. I’m wondering if Amtrak is doing that considering the Cali Zephyr is daily… I can’t think of another good re-route, it would be nice if someone could confirm what is actually going on.
In general, reroutes for a scheduled outage that can be planned for, for an outage lasting less than a week, are rarely done, except for certain priority freight. The crew costs are deadly and little if any time is saved.
RWM
It is a scary thought of the possibility that either of these bridges being taken out of service for whatever reason for a long length of time. I would hope that BNSF and UP have an agreement already in place in case that happens. That would include trackage rights, crew qualifying, requirements for additional maintenance and inspections, etc… It appears that UP is applying the bigger bullet by proposing a high bridge. Not knowing the topography around Burlington maybe a high bridge there is not possible? Or how about a tunnel? Has either bridge ever been closed for flooding since the present dam and lock system went in place?
It’s mostly flat around Burlington - I guess you could build a high bridge there if you built the approaches for it. I know that flooding is a problem with the Mississippi in certain years, but I’m not sure if it affects the BNSF Burlington Bridge or not. I know that the DM&E line that runs along the Mississippi for good portions of Iowa and Minnesota is outside of flood dikes built by many towns to keep the water out (with the line being outside of the flood dikes).
Any news if UP got their TIGER application approved and will they actually construct their high bridge? Or is it all just talk right now?