Here are two posts from trainorders.com that pretty well sum up the repairs.
Date: 04/28/17 12:02
Re: Sims Bridge Update
Author: Bridg3guy
FYI the repair plan calls for replacing the End post and other broken/bent members with fabricated steel beams. To facilitate the work a jacking frame will be installed below the truss floor beam that has rotated. This will be used to jack up the floor beam and replace the Hangar that was damaged. They will assemble a new end post and install it where the end post that was mangled in the derailment. The current estimate to restore service over the bridge is considerably less than that which the PR guys used for shippers. I would guess that this work will take somewhere around 7-10 days . I got my info and pictures from a person on site that is responsible for the emergency repairs.
More Later , I hope to get more pictures as the work progresses.
Date: 04/28/17 12:21
Re: Sims Bridge Update
Author: EMDSW-1
Bridg3guy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> FYI the repair plan calls for replacing the End
> post and other broken/bent members with fabricated
> steel beams. To facilitate the work a jacking
> frame will be installed below the truss floor beam
> that has rotated. This will be used to jack up the
> floor beam and replace the Hangar that was
> damaged. They will assemble a new end post and
> install it where the end post that was mangled in
> the derailment. The current estimate to restore
> service over the bridge is considerably less than
> that which the PR guys used for shippers. I would
> guess that this work will take somewhere around
> 7-10 days . I got my info and pictures from a
> person on site that is responsible for the
> emergency repairs.
> More Later , I hope to get more pictures as the
> work progresses.
Exactly as I had predicted and have known for several days from some inside sources at a contractor UP uses for this type of work! Damage to the bridge is minor considering the overall picture and they have a perfect un-damaged pattern a few hundred feet away that they can use for measurements. Removing the existing bridge to make room for a precast concrete one would substantially delay the project and require soil bearing testing, environmental crap as well as engineering to make the new multi-span work where a truss bridge was what worked 100 plus years ago.
Dick Samuels
Oregon Pacific Railroad
With regard to the environmental bureaucrats, here is a post of how the SP delt with them in a similar situation, also from trainorders.com:
Date: 04/27/17 09:58
Re: Sims Bridge Update
Author: spnudge
I think this was the same type of bridge, that went into the Klamath River south of Hornbrook in a derailment. It took 2 units of a helper, the bridge and some cars in the 80s.
The SP called the Copco Dam, had the water flow reduced so they could get cables around the units. Then they pulled the junk out of the river and rebuilt the bridge with a concrete deck affair and new pilings. The 2 units were scrapped on site. (The helper fireman knew they were in trouble when he was walking back in the dark checking the train when he could see a Red Mars Light, under water, going around.)
The EPA showed up and jumped up and down, writing tickets. The officer on the site, took the tickets, put them in his pocket and kept on working. The bridge was open and trains running by the time the courts were involved.
A side note with the EPA. I was the engineer on the work train that picked up the tank car at Cantera. The tank car was loaded on a flat car in front of the engine and we were instructed to take the car to Black Butte. Well this EPA guy was standing below my window when I started to go east. He started yelling that the car was to go back to Dunsmuir. I ignored him and called the Superintendent on the radio and he said, "Go to where we discussed." We did. Why rub salt in a wound by taking the car back to where it would keep the pot boiling under the public's eye? Nobody really knew where it went for a day or so. Meanwhile the car dept. showed up, blocked it for movement, and it went to the one spot at Klamath Falls. It sat in the rear of that place for years.
Nudge
Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2017 10:02AM by John West.
