Today I stopped and took a look at a CSX/Amtrak bridge replacement project in Westfield MA. The road underneath has been a choke point for many years. Many a trailer truck has peeled back the trailer when the driver missed all the warning signs. A new bridge is being built right along side the present Truss bridge and will be almost four feet higher. I guess the bridge is at least 400 feet long. New road bed is needed on either end. It is quite a project to keep the line open. There is a lot of freight traffic east and west, plus Amtrak comes though a few times a day. Managed to take quite a few pictures from a point in front of the old railroad station.
Rich
An interchange turnout for the Pioneer Valley Railroad is a few hundred feet west of the bridge.
Rich - Thanks for the description and the photos - until now, I haven’t been able to give this the time that I wanted to. Some observations and questions:
Since the piers for the new bridge are concrete and are off to the side from the existing track, it looks like the new track will be on a new parallel alignment about 15 to 20 +/- ft. away from the existing track, and then “S-curve” back to the existing track to remain at each end - correct ? Then the old bridge will just be torn down. The former 2nd track’s location couldn’t be used instead because:
a) The floor cross-beams continue under both tracks - if those were touched, then the other “live” track would be disrupted as well; and,
b) It looks like there’s a billboard sticking up between the bridge’s beams in the middle of the former track, in the 2nd - 4th photos - really odd-looking in the 3rd (I was wondering what the heck it was ? [%-)] )
Also, the designers apparently elected not to consider building the new bridge on the side, and then “rolling it into place” of the old one during a short shut-down of the line.
Similarly, since the new track will be about 4 ft. higher, then a vertical transition from the existing track up to that level and then back down again will be needed, 1 at each end of the new bridge. That will likely be a couple of back-to-back vertical curves, also in an S-configuration (not that anyone other than a track guy or a surveyor would ever see or notice that detail). Anyway, any sign of preparations for that going on at either end of the bridge ? Might be a little early in the construction process yet for that, though.
Or, what you call “Steel fence” in the 2nd photo is actually sheet piling. That could be used to make kind of a temporary retaining wal
If this is done correctly, the curves transitioning to the new alignment (both horizontal and vertical) will be barely noticeable once evidence of the old alignment has been removed. I’m not familiar with the area either, so don’t know whether the old track through town was arrow-straight or not. Still, there have been replacement bridges built in several locations on our line here. Most have been done with shoo-fly work during construction to permit the new bridge to be in the same location as the old one (or the old alignment which did not have a bridge), but we have one set of bridges that was built off the old alignment–there are more curves now than there used to be, but the new curves are gentler, and–unlike the old curve in the area–have no timetable speed restrictions.
ICG built a new bridge for their two-track main in Rantoul, IL in the 70’s, in conjunction with some road construction in that area. They built a shoo-fly and put the new bridge where the old one was. The alignment through Rantoul is arrow-straight.
It’s pretty much straight through there - if anything, it may already have a slight bend to the south, which this will apparently add to. I just looked it up using:
Westfield “CP109”) is near the western middle of Massachusetts, about 8 miles west of Springfield and the Connecticut River, and about 5 miles west of West Springfield. This location is then real easy to find. [;)]
I see the PVRR interchange track’s turnout off to the west as Rich noted, which track curves to the north from the CSX’s former Boston & Albany main line, which this is, I believe. Right at the western end of the former station appears to be an underpass for the PV’s line (formerly NY, New Haven & Hartford, per the SPV Railroad Atlas for the North East U.S.), when it used to cross over the Westfield River and continue south to Farmington (and others) to the city of New Haven. So both that underpass and the interchange turnout may present some challenges to realigning and raising the main line to accomodate the new bridge, depending on fast the track’s running speed is wanted to be. Not insurmountable problems - and far easier that thatn having to lower the main line - but it won’t be a “slam-dunk”, either, esp. with the frequency and importance of both the CSX and Amtrak traffic on that line.
How far back from the center of the bridge/max height would you have to start realigning a grade to raise it say…30 feet and keep the approach grade around or under 1%?
CN (or is it the state of Wisconsin?) is doing something similar, albiet smaller in scale, on their main track just south of Fond du Lac over Hwy 41, just north of Valley.
Neat question. The answer: 4,500 ft. back. The grade will be 1.00 % as specified.
The entrance vertical curve (“VC”) upwards will be 2,000 ft. long so that the rate of grade change in the “sag” is 0.05 % per 100 ft. (“surveying station”) per AREMA recommendations for mainline tracks. Next will be a vertical tangent = constant grade of 1,500 ft. on the 1.00 %. Finally, the ending vertical curve downwards to level off will be 1,000 ft. long so that the rate of grade change at the “summit” is 0.10 % per 100 ft., again per AREMA. (The opposite side would be a mirror image.)
So, total length = 4,500 ft.
Total distance on grade between PVI’s = [(1/2 of 2,000 ft. VC = 1,000 ft. from the PVI = “Point of Vertical Intersection”) + 1,500 ft. tangent + (1/2 of 1,000 ft. VC = 500 ft.)] = 3,000 ft. total.
Total rise = 1.00 % x 3,000 ft. on grade between the PVI’s = 30 ft. Done !
Here is a link to the Truss bridge photo looking North. Somehow they stopped the traffic for the photo or very early on a Sunday morning. Work on the replacement bridge had not started yet.
The old station is immediately to the left out of sight. Nice location for train watching, plus you can see one end of the Pioneer Valley yard and connection the the zcsx line.
To the left is Rt 202, three lanes. The center lane is to take a left just after going under the track. Only 11’ 6" of clearance which has snagged many a trailer truck.
Way over to the right behind the pile of dirt you can just see two yellow signs on the bridge. That is for trucks. Really a choke situation.
At the same time a new bridge for vehicular traffic is being built across the Westfield River which is to the right and directly behind the camera location. What a mess during rush hour. Rt 202 North will go through what is now the truck route.
Someday I will try to get to the area where the new route will tie into the present track. Until a few years ago, this bridge was two track.
In the 1800s, what is now RT 202 use to cross both tracks at track level. Many horse drawn wagons were taken out before the Truss bridge and underpass were built.
As far as how track will approach bridge, I believe that it is now single track on what was once a multiple track ROW…at least a two track main plus sidings or industrial running tracks. Therefore it should be quite easy to keep the track as straight as possible with little effort.
Rich - Thanks for the photo links and additional descriptions, esp. the “Explore Western Massachusetts” blog. I was not aware of that one - western Mass. is one of our more popular getaways - from Northampton/ Amherst, Shelbourne Falls, Deerfield River valley & Zoar, Hoosac Tunnel, North Adams, & down to Pittsfield, etc.
Looking forward to whatever else you can provide !
I am thinking it will be two track. I use to live right next to this section some years ago and my back yard was a great train watching site. If you go to Google maps and search for Westfield MA, you can see double track from the West Springfield yard all the way though Westfield and a few miles west of this bridge it becomes single track for a climb into the Berkshires. Use the Satellite option. The Google map is a couple years old I think. It does not show what is going on right now.
Just west of the bridge is the connection to the Pioneer Valley short line. A little east is a turnout into a local distribution yard. A little further east and a turnout into a rock salt distribution yard. Maybe a couple miles east of that is the Lane Quarry trap rock siding where cars are pushed up a siding and allowed to roll down as each car is filled be a large bucket loader. A series of belts delivers the trap rock into a couple large piles for the bucket loader.
Yes, it is a great area. Here is some info about Chester MA. There use to be a pusher area in Chester about 20 miles west of Westfield during the steam era, 2-8-2s I think.
This looks like the same bridge that I saw featured on World’s Worst Drivers on Tru TV a few weeks ago. Ya know where this is going… 11’ 5’ bridge - dummy driver not paying attention drives his 12 foot high truck into the bridge at @30mph and rips the top off of the truck. Sad part is I laugh every time! There were so many incidents at the bridge that they put a internet cam in pointed at the bridge.
That whole project has been a long time coming – and desperately needed. The new highway bridge is almost as interesting as the railroad work – it’s a steel truss, which isn’t all that common these days. I will be very interested to see if the powers that be manage to improve the overall highway traffic flow through there; it could surely use it. There shouldn’t be any problem realigning the main line east of there (it is the old B&A main line, by the way); west of there it might get a little interesting because of the PV interchange although I’m sure it’s manageable. I’m not sure, but I think the railroad bridge across the river (the old ‘canal line’ to New Haven) is out of service; certainly the track south of the river seems to be. The PV north, though, is very much alive and well and goes to Holyoke, MA.
Yes, the diamond was removed for the line running south in 1997. I was living about 1/2 mile from that diamond and I could always hear Conrail and Amtrak crossing the diamond, especially at night. Then one night I became aware I could hear the train but no noise from the diamond. I went down to the area next day and saw the diamond was gone. The main line at the time was dual track.
The bridge south will be come a rail trail that extends into Connecticut.
Hard to believe but a canal in the earlier 1800s use to come up the same area before the railroad and the canal crossed the Westfield River on a bridge. The center of Westfield use to have a turning basin for the boats.
Of course, those numbers only apply in the simple case where the existing track gradient is level. If the track is on a grade the numbers will change, getting longer (possibly much longer) to the downhill side and shorter on the uphill side. Use Paul’s formula, but you need to do a separate calculation for each approach.
Either way, though, to gain 30 feet you are looking at moving a lot of dirt to create nearly two miles of embankment, and generally it is a lot cheaper to depress or elevate a road. Some river crossings can be easier to raise, IF the tracks drop downgrade into the river valley from both sides.
I was back at the same spot a few days ago looking east. One span is in place and the second span is in the process of bring installed. The station is behind me a a little to the right. Raised about five feet.
I turned to the right looking west in front of the station. The roadbed is behind the steel “fence”.
Looking west on the other side of the station.
The track that connects with the CSX and leads into the yard of the Pioneer Valley Railroad.
