Amtrak to replace nearly century-old Thames River Bridge

Amtrak will spend $76 million to replace the 87-year-old Thames River Bridge between New London and Groton, Conn.

The national intercity passenger railroad recently awarded a contract to Cianbro Corp. to complete the two-year project, which calls for replacing the bridge’s bascule lift span. Later this month, workers will begin installing seven new underwater communications and signal submarine cables.

Amtrak and Cianbro Corp. Announce $76 Million Bridge Span Replacement at New London, Conn.

WASHINGTON - The nearly 100-year-old Thames River Bridge between New London and Groton, Conn. will undergo a $76 million replacement of its aging bascule lift span under a construction contract between Amtrak and Cianbro Corporation of Pittsfield, Maine, the parties announced today.

The construction project will take two years to complete and is the largest single capital improvement Amtrak will make to the Northeast Corridor during this time. Work on the project begins this month on the installation of seven new underwater communications and signal submarine cables.

In the most dramatic phase of the construction project to occur over 12 days during the fall of 2007, the bascule lift or movable center portion of the bridge will be removed, a 188-foot long, 35-foot wide, and 1,250 ton vertical lift will be floated into place on barges from Long Island Sound and attached to the bridge. This will result in a four-day outage of this section of the railroad, during which Amtrak plans to establish a "bus bridge" in Connecticut connecting passengers to trains in the direction of New York and Boston (details will be released in 2007).

Constructed in 1919, the Thames River Bridge is located between New London and Groton, Conn. The bridge lift is currently operated by machinery parts that have reached the end of their lifespan. The project is the first of three major movable bridge replacements (Thames River, Niantic and Miamacock) in Connecticut planned over the next 10 years. Virtually all work will be done while the railroad continues to operate, with minimal interruptions during the multi-year job.

Project Details

Lasting until early 2008, the Thames River Bridge project will include the fabrication and erection of two lift towers and a lift span, re-location of the bridge tender's control house, the installation of new machinery, electrical systems and underwater communications and signal cable. The project also calls for modification of the piers and the marine fender system that protects the piers from marine traffic.

"The aged drawbridge will be replaced by a more efficient vertical lift bridge that rises between two towers," said Peter Finch, Amtrak project engineer. "Once that is complete, rail passengers will be able to depend on a reliably operating lift span for the better part of this century."

Amtrak's Bridge & Building department will assist Cianbro ("CHIN-bro") Corporation with the relocation of the bridge tender's control house, which contains the electrical controls, machinery and back-up engine generator to operate the bridge. The new lift span, constructed by Cianbro, will have new track and walkways. Amtrak will assist Cianbro with the installation of new timber ties and tie spacers and Amtrak crews will install the running rails, guard rails joint bars and tie plates.

Amtrak electrical crews will extend existing power and control cables and monitor the installation of the new power control system, replace the navigation lights on the bridge and install lighting on the new pier fenders. New signal system cables and telephone service to the control house will also be installed.

Operational Impacts

During the course of the project, the impact to rail service will be minimal, with no major outages except when the bridge span is changed out. The final phase will take place in late 2007, when a four-day shutdown of the railroad will occur.

The project's effect on maritime traffic will also be minimal, with the work schedule being coordinated with the boating community, submarine base and Coast Guard. Once installed, the new lift span is expected to improve the reliability of both rail and marine traffic by minimizing bridge mechanical problems.

The Thames River Bridge project is part of a comprehensive infrastructure program in the Northeast. Over the past three years, considerable progress has been made including the installation of 439,000 new concrete ties, 188,000 wood ties, and 225 rail miles of continuous welded rail. Amtrak crews have also undercut 80 miles of track, installed 398 switches, retimbered 65 bridges and renewed 243 miles of electric catenary hardware. Earlier this year, Amtrak Engineering began the Rhode Island Freight Rail Improvement project and, in 2006 will begin the construction of a new interlocking in Niantic, CT.

Amtrak Poised To Begin Drawbridge Replacement

Amtrak will begin the long-anticipated replacement of the nearly 100-year-old Thames River railroad drawbridge this month.

Construction began Jan. 2 on a $76-million replacement for an 87-year-old Amtrak bridge spanning the Thames River in New London, Conn. Under a contract awarded in October, Cianbro Corp., Pittsfield, Maine, will replace the bridge's bascule section with a new lift span, Amtrak Acting President and CEO David Hughes told reporters in a Jan. 11 telephone conference call. HNTB is the design firm for the project.

Obviously the project has slipped a lot. The closure was originally supposed to happen this fall, during the slower period in October or early November.

And it looks like the plan to cancel all rail service between New York and Boston, with no alternate service, will still take place, although it appears that it could be for longer than a four-day period.

Really, the solution should be for CSX to allow a few Amtrak trains to use to old Inland routing.

It seems as if Amtrak has selected the least imaginative solution to the problem: do nothing. And to say the reason for doing nothing is because the closure will affect too many people is quite creative logic.

So, why not move four cab cars from Springfield or Harrisburg service and make-up four shuttle trains: two on each side of the closure. Operate service every two hours between New Haven and New London and every two hours between Mystic and Boston. Between New London and Mystic have a fleet of ten buses to cover the closed area (11 miles). Shuttle trains would be capacity controlled to five coaches (400 passengers).

It that an ideal solution? No. It would probably add an hour to the trip time. It would require a through passenger to change seats three times. But 5000 or so passengers who otherwise would have to go elsewhere could get transportation and after four days it would be back to normal. I certainly think it is better than nothing, and Amtrak is planning nothing.

I also have to wonder why it's going to take 4 days to do this. That seems excessive if the bridge work is already done. All they really need to do is cut over the two tracks on either side of the river from the old approach to the new approach. That shouldn't take 4 days.

According to this press release from Amtrak in early 2006, they were going to have a bus bridge. Obviously they have backed off that statement.

Well the fact that the new bridge will be in the old bridge's footprint (rather than alongside) might have something to do with it.

The extra time - from 10 days to 20 days - would allow workers to remove the 4 million-pound counterweight now used to operate the drawbridge, Amtrak project manager Peter Finch told Connecticut's The Day. The new movable section will lift vertically. Amtrak originally planned to drive piles into the riverbed, creating a temporary platform that would support the counterweight. But because of the problems keeping the bridge piers stable, officials want to avoid any action that could jeopardize their efforts. "We don't want to press our luck, especially at such a critical point in the project," Finch said. There are other reasons to get the counterweight out of the way first: The counterweight itself would be in the way of the bridge-moving effort and it is too heavy to remain attached to the bridge while workers realign the bridge steel for trains to pass. Amtrak plans to cut the weight into six pieces and move them with a special crane onto a barge, eliminating the need for the platform.

The current bridge is a bascule bridge, not a swing bridge, thus there is no center "pivot" pier to remove. However, there is a massive counter weight that must be removed.

The original plan was to build a temporary support structure to hold the weight until it could be cut apart and removed at some future time. During the construction to date, there has been some unexpected shifting of the towers, and the plan is now to remove the counter weight ASAP. I'm not sure if this is to be accomplished during the 4 day rail embargo or the reuqsted 20 day bridge lift embargo.

Amtrak's original plan was for a 2-day rail embargo and 10 day bridge lift outage. Amtrak has now asked the Coast Guard for a 20 day bridge lift outage. This is not going over well with the commercial or recreational waterway users. I don't know if the Navy has responded to this request yet but a long closure has significant National security implications. Submarines have been known to pass under the bridge at low tide without a lift, but the Navy really doesn't want to be driven by the tides.

Ross

Tom Nanos has a number of photographs of the bridge mixed in here:
Tom Nanos Photo Blog