Railway Track & Structures - September 2007 - (Page 43) Boone High Bridge is under construction next to the Kate Shelley Bridge . Boone High Bridge After 107 years of use, the Kate Shelley Bridge near Boone, Iowa, will be replaced by the $43-million Boone High Bridge. ate Shelley’s place in railroading lore has been secure for many generations, but the bridge that carries her name has not fared so well. More than a century of continuous use has taken its toll on the bridge located along the Union Pacific’s Boone Subdivision near Boone, Iowa. Trains are only allowed to crawl across the structure, which causes traffic to backup on this major coal and intermodal route. “The existing bridge had been restricted to one train only on the bridge at a time for several decades, going back to when the Chicago and North Western was the owner and operator,” said Tom McCune, senior project manager at HDR Engineering, Inc., and lead designer for the Boone High Bridge. “Through a study and selected repairs conducted by Union Pacific in 2002, the one train restriction was removed. Two trains are now allowed on the bridge, but with speed restricted to 25 mph maximum. With an average of 70 trains a day across this bridge, it creates a bottleneck Rebuilding history: K in important unit train operations,” said McCune. “The bridge is more than 100 years old. The cost of refurbishing and strengthening the existing structure is prohibitive, given that you still have a 100-year-plus old bridge. The decision was made to replace the structure with a new bridge for two tracks with a design speed of 70 mph.” “The new bridge will facilitate greater operational efficiency, increase railroad capacity created by demand and improve velocity in volume that will result in reduced congestion on our rail lines,” said James Barnes, director of media information at UP. “When completed, the Boone High Bridge will be the highest double-track bridge in the world.” Construction on the $43-million bridge began in late 2006. According to Barnes, the bridge, along with service operations, will be completed in by Mischa Wanek-Libman, assistant editor Photos courtesy of Union Pacific. September 2007 43 www.rtands.com Railway Track & Structures http://www.rtands.com
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