Western Railroad Discussion > OT: Mississippi River barge traffic closed at Memphis

See this thread on the Eastern board concerning the Mississippi River being closed at Memphis due to a bridge failure.

https://www.trainorders.com/discussion/read.php?2,5252574

It didn't fail, it's just a few cracks, that's all.

Out

It's more of a separation than a crack.  Very significant and the bridge will likely be out of commission for weeks if not possibly months.  

Obviously a big disruption ot truck and for a while, barge traffic (it's been tempo stopped), but it's affecting UP's Marion container yard insofar as a 2 hour round trip drayage from Memphis to Marion is taking 4-5 hours now.   UP has no way to speed that up, either. 

 

The news reports were pretty clueless on the significance of the few cracks, that's sorta like
estimating the size of an iceberg by looking at it.

Out 

Didn't trump say infrastructure was a big part of his domestic policies, lol?

Posted from Android

Proud Foamer
OAKLEY, CA

Trump isn't president anymore and it's hard to say what he would have done on infrastructure due to the Covid epidemic.
Whatever he would have suggested it's doubtful that the Dems would have supported it.

Out 

From the photo, its difficult to say where it is on the bridge, but steel arches/trusses don't have redundancy. Its separated, and displaced. Not an engineer, but I bet those sorts of things don't just get 'forced' back into alignment. Interesting case to follow.

It's met minimal standards for quite some time, maybe the Christmas lights gives it a few extra points. I would think it's been ' shovel ready ' for a while.

Here's a link to the last previous inspection summary, from Bridgehunters on the Eastern post:

http://bridgereports.com/1512237

Lots of photos and info on Bridgehunters:
http://bridgehunter.com/tn/shelby/desoto

Awww put a little crazy glue on it..  That'll hold it.

Better than that, just call PHIL SWIFT with his FLEX SEAL and he'll bring an army of guys with putty knives and tons of this stuff!!  He might even use it to dam the Mississippi River there so it can be applied to the bridge.

tomstp Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Awww put a little crazy glue on it..  That'll
> hold it.

boxcar1954 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> From the photo, its difficult to say where it is
> on the bridge, but steel arches/trusses don't have
> redundancy. Its separated, and displaced. Not an
> engineer, but I bet those sorts of things don't
> just get 'forced' back into alignment. Interesting
> case to follow.

It's closer to the middle than either end.  The earthquake retrofit they did awhile back wa apparently only on the piers and pier supports, not the "M".   Some speculating brittle fracture due to the polar vortex back in February when it got down to zero here, but who knows.  



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/21 19:47 by memphisfreight.

Not really a bridge kinda guy but the cold exposure sure sounds like a possibility. The now famous Minneapolis bridge failure was eventually attributed to the expansion compensation design being defeated by road salt, so the damage was done by expansion and contraction caused by temperature.

We cruised under the I-40 bridge on Friday, May 7, on a 90-minute paddlewheel riverboat from Memphis.  We went under the eastern part of the bridge, near the Tennessee shore.  Of course, no one on our boat saw any cracks.  We also took a spin under I-55 and the two parallel railroad bridges.  We didn't do Bridge Walk, the public walkway along the northern UP double-track bridge.  We were walking in Memphis, down in the Jungle Room with Elvis.  We also saw a river barge loaded with CMA CGM and leased containers.  My guess is it shuttles to New Orleans to connect to an ocean-going container ship.  If there are none from New Orleans, then via Intracoastal Waterway to Houston.  This would seem to be a very slow routing.  Anyone have more info about this?

mapboy

Edit:  the tour guide on the steamboat said they call the I-40 bridge the Dolly Parton Bridge, but he said he didn't know why they did.  8>)

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/21 15:48 by mapboy.