Rebuild West End Bridge

Project Description

Pend Orelle Lake is home to Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railroad’s only east-west crossing from Seattle to Chicago, passing on average, forty-one trains per twenty-four hour period. The railroad bridge bottle necks three tracks from the east through this highly trafficked corridor, making it one of the busiest crossings west of the Rockies. Since its original construction in 1901, the bridge has begun to fail. Advanced American Construction, Inc. (AAC) has started construction to replace approximately 800 ft. of the bridge. This work involves driving new steel pile piers, installing new pre-cast pile caps, and setting 17 new bridge spans. All of this construction must be performed in a manner that allows BNSF to continue normal train traffic across the bridge. The trestle meets with the shoreline via a sheet pile bulkhead that AAC installed in May. Crews have driven ten 120 ft. - 140 ft. piles, set pile caps and stringers, that now come over 100 ft. from the shoreline. AAC will continue to build trestle over the following weeks and then begin to drive production piling towards the end of June. The bridge is schedule to be completed in mid-September. Following completion, AAC will begin to remove the existing piers and work trestle.

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