The flood caused by tropical storm Irene moved the 112-ft-long through truss on Green Mountain Railway
Just a symptom of a lack of infrastructure inspections and spending in 113 years, and one tropical storm Irene which caused 5 inches of rain.
Pushed off it’s moorings about 25° and only two bearings (of four) were in contact with the ground and the east side of the bridge had dropped several feet. Fortunately, the superstructure had sustained no damage, except for the bearings.
ECI was hired to stabilize and repair this 113-year-old bridge over the Williams River in Chester, VT. The flood caused by tropical storm Irene left the 112-ft-long through truss on Green Mountain Railway listing about 25° and barely stable. When we arrived to assess the situation on the Tuesday following the storm, only two bearings (of four) were in contact with the ground and the east side of the bridge had dropped several feet. Fortunately, the superstructure had sustained no damage, except for the bearings. ECI’s scope of work was to first stabilize the bridge, secondly to repair the bridge to make it temporarily passable to train traffic within three weeks (with a goal of compressing the schedule to just 2 weeks), and thirdly to construct new permanent abutments for the bridge after train traffic was established on the temporary repairs.
ECI mobilized on Thursday September 1 of 2011 (four days after Irene). The first couple of days was used to access the site, build a staging area, and construct crane pads. By Labor Day weekend, the bridge was again vertical and shored up to allow for us to rebuild the abutments. Over the next week, ECI stabilized the west abutment with concrete and shotcrete, built a new pile-supported bearing pedestal for the south east bearing, rebuilt the backwall and extended the west abutment, moved the bridge to its new temporary support, rebuilt the approaches, and installed new track. The first train crossed the bridge on at 1:30 pm on Wednesday September 14, only 13 days after ECI was hired to make the repair. The remaining task is to rebuild all new abutments.
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