Western Railroad Discussion > BNSF Chicago Sub Shoofly

As part of the Illinois Tollway's Central Tri-State Modernization Improvements, the exisiting bridge carrying the BNSF's Chicago Sub must be replace to allow the widening of the tollway. To keep trains running while the old bridge is demolished and the new bridge is built, the tollway is constructing a three-track shoofly. Two of the three mains have already been moved to the shoofly and the last track is expected to be moved this weekend or next.

Metra's Highlands Station and the Oak Street overpass west of the station provide great vantage points of the new shoofly.
Photos 1 and 2 are of a westbound BNSF intermodal as it eases through the west reverse curve and back onto Main 2 on Friday 10/9/2020.
Photo 3 is from the Oak Street bridge looking was at a westbound Metra train stops at the Highlands Station.

---

---

---

At last! Finally some top quality photos of the action on the "shoofly". Thanks for posting. I usually take our Westie to either Western Springs or Highlands Station and watch the work, while many trains pass through.

Thanks for the nice telephoto views.

Wow! Great photos of this project. I've been to Highlands a few times. It's one of my favorite spots, but I didn't realize it was so close to I-294. Thaks for the updates.

Kim Heusel

The Tollway may be paying for it, but there's no way they're the ones doing the actual construction on the railroad portion - the shoofly was built too fast! Only a railroad or railroad contractor can construct a railroad bridge that quickly. They'll have the new railroad bridges open and used for 20 years before the Tollway gets around to pouring asphalt. :-)

KEL27 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Tollway may be paying for it, but there's no
> way they're the ones doing the actual construction
> on the railroad portion - the shoofly was built
> too fast! Only a railroad or railroad contractor
> can construct a railroad bridge that quickly.

I railroad engineering guy I knew at HDR Engineering in Bellevue WA thought that HDR could score big if they bid on a new main arterial street bridge over a widened Interstate. The usual proposals were to tear out the street bridge, build another in its place, and have the arterial our of service for something north of a year. My colleague thought that were it a railroad, they would never get away with that, they would build the new bridge next to the old and roll it into place. They built the bridge as separate structures for the eastbound and westbound side, if I remember correctly, and had two weekend closures of the street to take out the old half structure and roll the new half in place. They even wound up making a splash in local TV news for what was, for them, just another day at the railroad.

TAW

TAW Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> KEL27 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The Tollway may be paying for it, but there's
> no
> > way they're the ones doing the actual
> construction
> > on the railroad portion - the shoofly was built
> > too fast! Only a railroad or railroad
> contractor
> > can construct a railroad bridge that quickly.
>
> I railroad engineering guy I knew at HDR
> Engineering in Bellevue WA thought that HDR could
> score big if they bid on a new main arterial
> street bridge over a widened Interstate. The usual
> proposals were to tear out the street bridge,
> build another in its place, and have the arterial
> our of service for something north of a year. My
> colleague thought that were it a railroad, they
> would never get away with that, they would build
> the new bridge next to the old and roll it into
> place. They built the bridge as separate
> structures for the eastbound and westbound side,
> if I remember correctly, and had two weekend
> closures of the street to take out the old half
> structure and roll the new half in place. They
> even wound up making a splash in local TV news for
> what was, for them, just another day at the
> railroad.
>
> TAW


Ohio has started rolling bridges in place to reduce closure time. They did it on I-75 at Bowling Green. I-75 goes over US-6. They were expanding 75 to 3 lanes. They built a complete three lane interstate bridge deck next to the existing. The existing bridge was razed and the new deck slid in place on new foundations over a three day weekend. The interstate was routed down the exit/entrance ramps around the bridge during the work. Same procedure for the NB side later in the project.

Posted from iPhone

Just returned from the site, and the relocation of main track 1, is almost complete. The ballast train is gone, and they are tamping main track 1 now. They might even be finished tonight. Once the BNSF crews have removed the last rail & ties from main track 1 on the bridge over the Ill Tollway, one would expect the crews from Walsh Construction Co., who built & installed the "shoo-fly", to arrive and begin removing to old bridge and constructing the totally new & longer bridge.