Western Railroad Discussion > SMART construction moves slowly south thru Marin Co.

Stacy-Witbeck-Herzog has another ten day work window before they have to reopen the NWP for thru freight service late next week. The new track has reached south now to the Grant Avenue Crossing in Novato adjacent to the still standing passenger depot. The following three images show the work in progress, including a contractors ballast train and a laser liner a block north at Olive Avenue and a view looking south towards Ignacio. The next set of images shows the activity at Novato Creek. The contractor has placed a "plastic dam" across Novato Creek so they can start working in the dry creek bed to preform the preliminary work on the new concrete span. The first order of business is to remove the deck and some of the old wooden pilings so new steel piles can be hammered into place. The new bridge will have half of the in the water supports as the old so that debris from high water will have a wider channel to flow through. A pump and a large diameter hose has been set up to transfer water downstream.

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All of the bridges so far are of the same design and except for the pilings and abutments, are pre-fabricated. Once the pilings are in place, then its a matter of a few days with a crane to lift the concrete panels and bolt them together. The bridge at Cinnibar north of Petaluma which is twice as long as Novato Creek was done in less then two weeks. The final set of photographs shows the completed bridge at Santa Venetisa which has two sets of pilings to support the deck.

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The last image looks northward towards Hamilton Field. I thought I would include my thumb in the photos to add variety. The next big project starting sometime later this year and continuing into 2015 will be the complete replaced of the Haystack swing bridge south of Petaluma. text and photos (Copyright 2014) by Mike Pechner who is solely responsible for the content!

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The shots above are the completed bridge and the look at the ROW north to Hamilton Field.

Once again, thank you for sending images of the progress.

Are they planning double track on the ROW?

Siding will be south of Ignacio at Hamilton Field, in San Rafael, north at Cotati-Rohnert Park, Santa Rosa (already competed) see picture below .

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Well, shoot, this is disappointing. I heard there might be a thru freight on Saturday.

Last thru freight was July 22. A ten day window would elapse tmrw. They are laying track on the bridge north of Ignacio today. To my mind, there could be a run today, tmrw, or even Saturday, because the track will be connected.

Weather are you sure you aren't making a mistake saying the ten day window lasts until late next week? Of course you are connected to railroad as employee so I am assuming you are correct in what you are sharing with the board. Just asking in case you made an arithmetic error or some such.

Want to make sure the info is right because if there is a run this Saturday, this could be a good opportunity for railfans to catch NWP in action on one of those rare weekend runs. J. Ferris for example.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 07/31/14 11:39 by sliderslider.