This is NOT a political thread, please don’t make it one. Thanks. Our local news gave it the name:
http://www.keloland.com/NewsDetail6162.cfm?Id=0,75741 This is a bridge out in the middle of nowhere-literally!. It’s on the Cheyenne River, about 20 miles east of where I grew up. The Milwaukee Road line from Chamberlain to Rapid City ran over this bridge. The rails west to Rapid City, about 25 miles have been mostly pulled up. A road project cut the line, so it will never be rebuilt. To the east, tracks were pulled up about 70 miles to Kadoka. The next 100 miles is in bad shape, seeing a train every couple of years. This bridge is in a guy’s pasture. It appears he owns the ground at each end.
Maybe I’m interpreting it wrong, but it seems like the article, and the peoples’ comments in the article, stress the fact that they’re spending 700,000, or close to 1 million, to repair the bridge, but downplay the estimate that they save only $50,000 if they demolish the bridge.
So to me it seems like a gamble, or investment, of $50,000, and maybe someday somebody might think up a worthwhile use for the bridge, as opposed to saving $50,000 today, and definitely needing to pay more than that in the future should there be a need for a river crossing in that spot.
Also correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the Alaska bridge to nowhere’s price tag in the hundreds of millions to put a new bridge in where none exists now? In other words if they do nothing in Alaska there’s no immediate cost, but if they do nothing here they risk having the wreck fall in the river, in which case the cost could be considerably more than either the demolish or repair for an extra $50,000. I don’t see much of a valid comparison.
What I got out of the story is , yes- it looks like it would cost only $50,000 more to fix the bridge, than to tear it down. For that extra $50,000, all we’re getting is a fixed up bridge, that will never be used for anything. The line is gone. The traffic is gone. The route has been made unusable in the future.
I guess nobody ever considered the other option? Stablize the bridge, so it doesn’t fall into the river, and leave it at that.
The story said the money was coming from a State fund to repair railroads. We have a lot of tracks that could use repair. This bridge does not even have tracks, and never will.
Who do you suppose, found this rusting bridge on this guy’s ranch, and said “Hey- we need to fix this puppy up”?
Suppose if sometime in the future that diesel fuel costs $10 a gallon and trains are using as now 1/4 or even more efficient 1/8th the amount of diesel compared to being shipped by truck. Would RRs be laying down rail on old roadbeds like we have never seen before? Medium and heavy duty trucks in this country use 25% of the oil used in the USA.
You’d be surprised at some of the things that so-called “Historical Societies” want to save as long as taxpayers are coughing up the money.
There was a move afoot a few months ago to save an old Harvey House in Seligman, Arizona that the BNSF wanted to tear down because it was loaded with lead paint, asbestos, and no telling how much other materials that qualified it as a Hazmat site.
I have to agree with gardendance, I think that it would be wise to repair, for the small amount more, and still have the asset in place. Yes, $50,000 is a lot of money to you or me, but in the perspective of this project, it is a very small amount. $770,000 to repair and have available in the future, or $720,000 to tear out and not have as an option for any future use.
What was it 30-40 years ago, they thought that the Powder River trackage wouldn’t ever amount to anything? What do BNSF/UP have there now, 3 tracks? I think it is better to spend a little extra to maintain something , than to spend nearly as much to destroy, and have nothing left.
A couple of months ago I saw an article in the Rapid City Journal about how they were pulling up the tracks on that line between Rapid City and Farmingdale for conversion to a bicycle trail. The article also said there’s a group trying to get funding to build a bike trail on the old roadbed all the way to Kadoka.
I imagine they are preserving the bridge on the chance they can someday get the funding for the trail. A bicycle trail on the old roadbed would run through some nice pretty scenery, including running around the south side of the Badlands National Monument.
This would of course keep the ROW intact and draw tourists to ride on the trail. I’m sure they were only spending enough money to keep the bridge upright and strong enough to support bicycle traffic.
Given the slanted nature of the reporting on KELO, if this was on a project close enough to Sioux Falls to draw tourists in THAT direction, KELO would be PROMOTING the plan, instead of trying to turn it into a conspiracy theory.
I wonder how many locals they had to interview to get the one guy they put on the air to suit their own agenda?
By the way, WHO paid for the repairs on the old RR trestles that are part of the Sioux Falls bike trail system, which I have riden on at least a dozen times?
The video shows a no tresspassing sign posted in the middle of the deck. It appears the land owner at both ends does not even drive across it. From the video, the “river” appears closer to a creek at its flow level on the day of filming. Commerical navigation is certainly no issue.
Is there a state legislative oversight committee looking into the repair decision?
Is there some environmental regulation as a reason that would require removal rather than rot in place?
Ackkk!! [:O] We’ve just spent $771,000 on bridge that might get used for a possible, future bike trail?
Thanks for the info Butch. Since this didn’t affect our little center of the universe, the R.C. Journal article never made any waves over here.[;)]
From the article:" The DOT stresses that the money being used to repair the bridge is coming out of the Railroad Trust Fund, which receives money from leases of state-owned track"
I was wondering something similar, someone somewhere appears to have some sort of long term game plan for this route. Maintining the bridge would make sense if there was some sort of stratigic planning going on.
You’re fixating on the $771,000 figure, while forgetting, or ignoring the fact that the least expensive acceptable option to the authorities is still $721,000. The only real choice is whether or not to spend $50, 000, NOT $771,000. If there is the possibility of a rail trail going in, then fixing the bridge and rail banking the ROW could be a wise investment.
Again to say that the ROW will NEVER be used again is extreme, they NEVER expected the current business level in the PRB either, I would bet, also I doubt that BN ever expected to reopen Stampede Pass. Distant future rail traffic can be very difficult to predict, and while not many, some rail banked rail trails have been put back into service, it is still a worthwhile option to consider rail banking the ROW.
I understand what you’re saying, but I’m not fixating on the $721,000, rather I’m fixating on the fact that they spent anything. It appears to me, they could have spent minimal funds to stablize the existing old bridge, to keep it from falling into the river. The river at that point, is usually about knee deep.
Never might be extreme, but I grew up there, and it will never see another train over that bridge. The PRB BN lines at least had traffic. This line did not, and has been gone for about 30 years.
I would guess in the very remote chance a rail line would be relaid on that R-O-W, the existing bridge would probably not be usable for modern weight limits. They would end up replacing it anyway.
The rails to trails angel reminds me of the new high bridge being built next to the Kate Shelley bridge here in Iowa. The steel work from the exMILW Des Moines River bridge down by Madrid, IA is being used by the UP on the new bridge. All that’s left are the concrete piers. The UP inherited this line from the CNW and abandoned this line a few years ago. At the time, the steel was removed and trucked to Boone.
The exMILW R-O-W is being turned into a bike trail. Some of the trail people are upset that the UP removed the bridge and want to use government money to replace the bridge. As I recall, the estimate was in the millions.
Jeff
PS, I don’t know of any Bridges to No Where in Iowa, but a columnest in the Des Moines Register likes to call the farm to market rural highway system the Roads to No Where.
What I should have mentioned in my first post is this: Legally, this right of way was NEVER abandoned. It was part of the Milwaukee Road lines that South Dakota purchased in 1980. They probably paid for the bridge repairs with the rail salvage from Farmingdale to Kadoka.
Like it was said on an earlier post, if diesel hits ten bucks a gallon someday, we may need that ROW again. When Governor Mikkelson wanted to bike trail the abandoned Sioux Valley Junction to Watertown line, it was said that “We may need that ROW again in 50 years”. But now it’s gone and if they do need it in 50 years it’ll take 15 more to get tracks back down and the legal fights start.
Precisely why I think it’s extreme to say it would ever be built again. A number of years ago, the Indiana & Ohio (pre-Rail America days) wanted to reinstall about a mile of railroad connecting two lines. The outcry was unbelievable, you would have thought they wanted to run mainline, 10,000 foot trains by the hour, with noisy engines exhausting megatons of fumes into the air, running over the public left and right. They never got it done.
I see what you’re saying. As we don’t know what the ROW needs will be in the area 50 years from now, perhaps we should preserve the existing ROW, just in case. (?) Even that train of thought has some loose ends. We spent $771,000 to fix up up railroad bridge to roughly 1978 standards. If someday this line is re-opened, it would have to be built to then current loading standards. To me, that would mean building a brand new bridge anyway. If that weren’t enough, we used funds that could/should be used for current, operating lines that need improvements.
Minneapolis had a “bridge to nowhere” (though no one thought of the name then) in the early eighties. It was a highway bridge, but funding ran out in the early eighties recession / near-depression and the bridge sat empty with a road on one end and nothing on the other, like a wacky ski-jump. I remember one local TV station using it in a show claiming it was built that way to ward of Martian attacks, since Martians loved bridges and would jump like lemmings off the end. [(-D]
I think I know what the reaction of that landowner would have been if no repairs had been made, the bridge tumbled down in the river and with the next high water HIS land would turn into the new river bed…