The railroad, it turns out, renovated the track bed and track under the proposed skywalk earlier this year after the library construction had begun, raising the track 6 inches and putting the bottom of the skywalk into the 25-foot clearance distance required by the railroad by 4 inches.
http://thegazette.com/2012/08/30/skywalk-connection-to-new-cedar-rapids-could-be-a-matter-of-inches/
Who is responsible to pay for the clearance redo?
This seems to be a case of the Library Board not checking with the Union Pacific before design and construction began.
Ticklish question? Was there any agreement to what the TOR (top of rail) level was for the purpose of determining overhead clearance?
Track gangs when doing tie replacement and surfacing routinely have little regard for raising the track level. Sometimes this comes back to bite them. A number of years ago, a surfacing gang did their work on a sub division that handled trailer on flat car trains…after they finished their work, 13’6" trailers started coming to the destination terminals with their roofs pealed back. The gang had applied a 2 inch lift to the ruling clearance restriction of the sub - divisional track forces were immediately mobilized to go to the location and resurface the location and removed the 2 inch lift.
About 10 years ago, the city of Madrid, IA (exMILW track) wanted to replace a bridge. The new structure would only have been 18 feet above the rail. The UP stopped the plan for a while, requiring 23 feet to clear double stack cars. The funny thing was that this branch line, originally the MILW’s main line to Council Bluffs, was listed as a possible abandonment candidate and would probably never have a double stack car go on it. The CNW, who bought the line after the MILW retrenched, had allowed the city some years earlier to replace a bridge and use the 18 foot clearance.
I forget now if the city was allowed to use their 18 foot plan (I think they were) or if they had to go with the UP’s 23 foot requirement. It’s a moot point now, the line was abandoned and is now a bicycle trail.
I’ve seen overhead bridges with a clearance line and a sign advising MOW forces not to raise the top of the rail over that line.
Jeff
Currently, 20 foot 2 inches is the maximum for both autoracks and double stacks.
I wonder how long it will be before the idea of triple stacking comes into play?
(1) The engineer/architect is in deep doo-doo for practicing outside the area of his expertise and not talking to the Yellow Peril. - sounds like they went and asked to get a permit agreement way too late and got kicked in the teeth by their own failure to deal with details. (and this is hardly a new issue with non-railroad engineers and architects, the arrogance seems to be getting worse)[banghead][banghead][banghead]
(2) Iowa DOT is in hot water for allowing the old rules to be sunsetted out of existance in 1993 and not updating what they had (then again, the stupid move has been repeated in several other areas of transportation regulation in the state - (As I have said before, the Iowa Town Hall Kum-Ba-Yah Group Hug deal-with-it-as-we-go nonsense has to stop before somebody else gets killed [soapbox]) - Sorry CR TinShoes
(3) The Iowa politicians get to share in the blame in sunsetting the rules out of existence, especially the doing away with the clearance envelope.
(4) The Yellow Peril’s 25 foot rule takes into account the current catenary electrification of freight corridor rule which US-DOT has been promoting since 1986 at 24’-6" and adding 6" for surfacing or aises of grade.
(Clearance regs in most states are based on old 1958-61 model law and are usually set at 22’-6" (Nominally between 21’ and 23’ depending where you are), the envelopes can either be square, square with notches in the corners or round on top (bullet / cathedral window shaped)
At bare minimum, the consultant and the city are buying an undercutter and surfacing gang. The building most likely will stay and some remedial action will happen.
IMHO - any licensed engineer or architect (and possibly the surveyor if there was one) that was involved in the design/approval/construction process ought to be in fear of losing his/her license.[2c] Group Fail.
Wondering how
This doesn’t look like mainline track–Brian or Jeff can probably confirm the location for us. UP should put the fear of the Yellow Peril into them, then do what they feel is necessary to satisfy their own requirements (at the library’s expense, unfortunately).
Interesting article. It appears from some of the comments, that this was a “Design-Build” type project. In our neck of the woods, Design Build projects are sold a s being cheaper and faster than the old fashioned way of knowing what you’re doing before you start. Typically, they have to include a bunch of slush fund money, to cover the inevitable surprises, that, ironically, tend to slow down a project, and run up the cost.
As I read the article, it appears they just went into the thing full bore. It says they also may need to pay $65,000 for a UP(?) flagman during construction? There’s apparantly already money in a contingency fund for that…
To put it into perspective, the fix will cost $15-20,000, on a $46,000,000 library. That’s about 1/100 of 1%…
The rail line in question is the lead into the joint railyard by Quaker Oats and the former passenger spur from UP into downtown- lots of traffic from UP back and forth to the Cargill plant, INRR traffic back and forth between their yard and Penford/ADM, and CRANDIC as well. UP has been known to use it as a detour for mainline freights while working on the Cedar River bridge, so I would think the clearance would be potentially important. Kinda embarrassing from this railfan’s perspective…
It would be the original main line, now an industrial/switching lead, before the Linn County Ry was built between Otis and Beverly. The line is still intact and was used for a day or two to detour traffic through Cedar Rapids a some years back when the Cedar River bridge was being double tracked. It’s possible that a derailment could temporarily put stack trains under the walkway.
I think there’s only a single track there now, but at one time there were more. Cedar Rapids’ Union Station was near there. The MILW’s original Kansas City main (later branch) line via Ottumwa and the RI’s exBCR&N line from Burlington also ran through that corridor. Besides the UP, I believe the Crandic runs a transfer that way. We kind of discussed this general area a few years ago when the Crandic had a derailment on a curve, plus when they lost the original MILW bridge over the Cedar River in 2008.
Jeff
When I read this story, I knew it was ripe for a broadside from either MC or PDN’s Spike Cannons! [There was Political Short Cut written all over it.]
At just a guess, there is a gold mine laying here waiting to be mined for ‘Construction Change Orders’ by the General Contractor, not to mention UP’s potential to tear a corner off the local jurisdictions rainy day funds(?)…[:'(]
A bunch of Professional types[:$] stand to get their tail feathers in a bind over this one! [2c] And, you can also bet the Local Pols will be windmilling with their fingers pointing the blame elsewhere.
According to a TV news report (which I trust as much as I do a newspaper report… well, for that matter both were done by the same newsgathering organization)…
Anyway, the original plans put the skywalk above the track by the required amount, but the RR came through and raised the track AFTER the design was approved and the contractor didn’t really notice the track had been raised when the track gang went through.
Off hand, and I am sure I am way too simplistic at this, all that is required is to put a 6-inch shim on the top of the post and the ends of the airborne walkway (and put ADA ramps on each end). Probably some rework on how to attach the ends of the girders to the library and the parking ramp. It does not look like $20,000 worth of parts, but maybe twice that much in lawyer’s fees to argue about it.
I drove past the area today and took a short look (blocking traffic while I gawked) and the track is definitely higher than it was back during the flood of 2008, but 6 inches is difficult to detect when there is nothing left in the area that I have any recollection of relative elevations. They did get rid of the slight rollercoaster profile of the track with the grade crossings and the city block length of track between.
Trains run on that track several times per day… usually it is a switching lead for the yard behind Quaker Oats where they build a train to take to Beverly yards… the yard engine then pulls it south and across EVERY downtown E/W street, then an engine hooks on to the north end and pulls it to the west and then south to Beverly. The switch engine uncouples and toddles along behind until at the switch to the west and they reset the switch and return to the north yard. Other trains of 3 to 10 cars are pulled to/from Cargil on the south east side of town at various times of day. Speeds reach all of 5 to 8 MPH at times. (Maybe 15 if someone is in a hurry.)
Exactly. There had to have been a license or easement agreement with the railroad for this overhead crossing approved and signed before construction began - maybe not for the piers on the sides outside of the railroad’s right-of-way, but certainly before the main part of the bridge is installed over the tracks. While the consultants may be ignorant of railroad, “this isn’t the 1st rodeo” for the railroad - there has to be something in the agreement or approval addressing this, one way or the other - express or implied - as to who bears the responsibility of maintaining the clearance. At one extreme, the railroad may have committed itself to a lot of future undercutting and resurfacing every few years, hence a fairly hefty ‘up-front’ fee to cover many years of that*; at the other extreme, the railroad may have been obstinate enough to force the library to agree to a “no negative effect” provision, i.e., to raise the bridge when, if, and as much as needed (not likely because of the effects on the elevation and smoothness of the walkway surface, but who knows - it would be someone else’s problem years in the future, and there may be something in the design to accomodate that anyway).
*More likely, just take the money, and forget about the issue and continue to resurface the track as normal for many years until the clearance gets too close, or electrification becomes imminent - then deal with it. See also 2nd paragraph below regarding “tempest in a teapot” for more on that aspect.
Think of a slightly different scenario: Suppose the resurfacing didn’
“Off-topic”, but the “elephant in the room” here that hasn’t been mentioned yet is $46 million for a library in Cedar Rapids ?!? I like libraries just as much as - perhaps even more than - the next person (I have way more library cards than credit and debit cards), but other than in big cities (Philly, NYC, etc.) I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a $46 megabuck one. Our local “Parkland Community Library” is planning a new main building on a donated site, and that’s only a $12 million cost estimate. In the age of the Internet and electronic or computer-based everything, what is that library going to offer and do to keep from becoming technologically and socially obsolete ? The lack of an access ramp or bridge over the railroad may be small potatoes in that discussion - or a “make-or-break” central element to convenient community access, use, and support.
Link to a 2010 photo by Ross Fotheringham of the Cascade Tunnel portal, as posted to RailPictures.net http://www.railpictures.net/images/d1/3/7/0/4370.1265175129.jpg
Note the sign on the left, 2nd down from the top, which says:
BEFORE RAISING
TRACK
CALL DIVISION
ENGINEERING
Paul… ya just gots ta unnnerstan the mentality of gubbermint…
That library was just absolutly destroyed by the flood of 2008… cannot be repaired, cannot be torn down and rebuilt because it is in the flood plain and we just cannot get Fed MOOLA except to build a NEW building (in the flood plain).
But then when we gets our cut of the FEMA cash to build this new spectacular facility we will sell the old building to some stupid unsuspecting fool of a company that will clean it up and rent the old place out as office, retail and restaurant space!
This is just like they did with the residents whose appliances were submerged in the flood… “They are too contaminated to be repaired… You must put them out for special trash collecttion.” Then after all the stuff was collected and sitting in the city refuse facility, they said they we
The latest news:
From the KCRG TV 9 web site…
" A potential snag over the already-designed skywalk from the Fourth Avenue SE Parkade to the new library was averted Friday when Union Pacific Railroad assured city leaders that a clearance requirement would not be an issue.
Mark Davis, director of corporate and media relations for the railroad in Omaha, Neb., said the company’s “clearance team” had reviewed the design and concluded the $500,000 skywalk was in compliance. "
http://www.kcrg.com/news/local/Cedar-Rapids-Library-Skywalk-Wont-Be-a-Problem-168255056.html
OK - Uncle Pete is playing ball here and the City used up some of it’s 6" cushion. (really 32", no electric railroad will ever realistically run under catenary there - which is what UP isn’t saying), However:
(1) Flagman costs, train delay and permit/ contract costs were not figured into the project cost? Really?
(2) Who blew the whistle on a design that isn’t built yet? (assume it was not the railroad)
(3) What else is in that $65K fee? (qualified flagmen typically run $580-$640 a day); something hokey is not being said. RRP insurance?
RRP insurance? I’m curious what the RRP stands for.
“RailRoad Protective” - a very specialized form of coverage, basically to reimburse the railroad for any physical damage it suffers or monetary claims it has to pay to its customers (or passengers), or injured/ damaged 3rd parties, as a result of a screw-up by an outside contractor on or near the railroad’s property or operations. Which unfortunately occurs more often than one would expect or hope - BNSF alone has had 2 incidences of cranes falling across its tracks in the past year, 1 in rural Colorado about this time last year by some yahoos demolishing a grain elevator, and then the crane falling over while erecting a new signal bridge in the western Chicago suburbs a week or so ago.
At one time I thought there were only about a dozen people in the US who fully understood a Railroad Protective policy. I’m not so sure about that any more (I’m definitely not one of them !) . . . [:-^] [swg]
If you dig around a little bit - esp. on the Class I websites - you can find some more info about these.
