NS/NKP 1905 and 2018 Bridges over Grand River in Painesville, OH

(Bridge Hunter, no Historic Bridges, Satellite, 3D Satellite)

Street View

Norfolk Southern Railroad is replacing a 112-year-old bridge in Painesville. Tawana Roberts — The News-Herald

Glen Anderson posted nine photos with the comment:

Norfolk Southern hired two firms in Ohio to design and build a new single track bridge in Painesville, Ohio. HDR Engineering of Cincinnati designed the new bridge and the general contractor building the bridge is Great Lakes Construction Co. of Hinckley, Ohio. The original bridge over the Grand River was built in 1904 by the Nickel Plate Road, later N&W, now Norfolk Southern. The NS line is known as the “B Line” as the mainline extends between Bellevue, Ohio, and Buffalo, N.Y. (Not to be confused with Norfolk Southern's former Southern Ry. “B Line” in Northern Virginia.) The line typically carries 10 to 15 trains daily.
The new bridge consists of 11 spans and is 1,318 feet in length. The substructure includes 10 concrete piers founded on 7-foot diameter drilled shafts. The 26 drilled shafts are between 34 and 93 feet in depth, which includes the rock socket extending into the existing shale. The new piers are made up of 6-foot diameter columns with 8 of the piers also containing reinforced concrete struts to connect the columns. The piers are up to 71 feet in height above the top of drilled shaft elevation. The bridge foundations are being drilled down to bedrock, a distance that ranges from 30 to 100 feet below ground surface.
After completion of the substructure, the superstructure began in spring of 2018. The 10-foot high steel girders are being erected in pairs with the longest spans measuring 180 feet. Two 300 ton capacity cranes will hoist the 230 ton paired girders into place. The new deck consists of precast concrete deck panels tied down to the girders. New steel walkways and inspection grating platforms will be added to the bridge for use by Norfolk Southern Railway maintenance crews. On each side of the bridge, Great Lakes will also build the 2,000-foot approaches consisting of excavation, embankment, drainage, and sub-ballast for the new track alignment across the new bridge. Norfolk Southern crews will perform the track work and cut over the existing tracks to the new alignment so that railway traffic will have access across the new bridge. Finally, the existing bridge will be demolished by Great Lakes, and the rock causeway will be removed restoring the Grand River to its natural condition by the end of 2018. (Most of the preceding was compiled from various local news and construction company sources.)
My photos of the construction progress was shot on July 30th and August 2, 2018. The first two shots were made on July 30th and are from Riverside Dr. at the east end of the project.
The two views looking up from near river level are from E. Walnut Ave./Ohio Rt. 84, which passes under the trestle. The train on the trestle is an NS westbound stack train led by a UP unit. The train caught me by surprise as I hadn't heard any warnings, but it shows the height of the trestle above the Grand River.
The final five shots show the west end of the project and was shot on August 2 from Bank Street.
Riverside High School, my Alma Mater (Class of 1967) is about a quarter mile east of the trestle and I have fond memories of glancing out a couple of classroom windows to watch trains pass when I attended there, so this is a projectof great interest to me.
Google Map showing the old trestle... https://www.google.com/…/@41.716244,-81.22812…/data=!3m1!1e3All photos © 2018 Glenn Anderson

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Note Manitowoc 2250

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Another example of man lifts reaching really high.