Western Railroad Discussion > The Pit River bridge over Shasta Lake needs to replace by 2040.

Pit River Bridge, a major West Coast freight artery on I-5 in California, may be replaced (msn.com)

The artical is a interesting twist for a duel purpose bridge.

I believe if they build a new bridge it will be for vehicular traffic only, and the old bridge will be kept for rail traffic

And then the UP would own a very, very expensive bridge to maintain, one with the deepest underwater piers in the world.  All the costs on them by 2040.  This will be interesting to watch develop.

The interesting legal twist here is that the SP had a line up the canyon where the lake is now, and they didn't need a bridge.  Same for CALTRANS--the old Pit River Bridge is still down there, under water.  So the Feds wanted to build Shasta Dam, which forced the RR and CALTRANS to go along with the huge "new" Pit River Bridge.  Now, almost 100 years later, the Feds, who required all of this in the 1st place, want out.

The RR could argue about that point, or realize they'd have to be paying for maintenance all that time anyway on their old route, which had tunnels and bridges, too.  CALTRANS and SP both got a better route and gradient out of the deal.  But now that CALTRANS is planning on a new bridge, it dumps all the costs of this current bridge onto UP.  Granted, the bridge is very well built and solid, but even at 100 years old, it will need some major TLC.   Imagine if 50 years from now it was found "deficient" and had to be replaced??  Chances are if that happens, UP would just keep the same piers and somehow build a new structure on them.  But the difficulty and cost of that effort would be huge.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/22 08:57 by coach.

So the govt agency they forced the road and railroad on the bridge to build the lake no longer wants to own and maintain the bridge.

> CALTRANS and SP both got a
> better route and gradient out of the deal.

I'm guessing SP grades before the dam
were as good as now.

I would also assume a large part of the funding for such a massive project would be coming from the feds.   

I know if it were in my jurisdicition and the feds wanted to turn over jurisdiction I would push the "feds" to build the new structure and turn it over to my state, county, town once completed.

CV the civil E and a County Engineer in NJ

There's also a trend toward removing Dams for various reasons, maybe there's a case for going back to the old right of way. I'm good with some new photo opportunities.

That's such a monumental bridge, I don't know what to expect. Another aspect is there is no practical detour if something went wrong with that chokepoint, driving SR 299 and then finding your way into Oregon is a challenge. It's doable but add lots of time and mileage, the towns don't really support increased road traffic for gas and food, or repairs. During the wildfires of the past few years, even heavy snow in winter, the best case is just turn around and forget about it.

TCnR Wrote:
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> There's also a trend toward removing Dams for
> various reasons, maybe there's a case for going
> back to the old right of way. I'm good with some
> new photo opportunities.
>
> That's such a monumental bridge, I don't know what
> to expect. Another aspect is there is no practical
> detour if something went wrong with that
> chokepoint, driving SR 299 and then finding your
> way into Oregon is a challenge. It's doable but
> add lots of time and mileage, the towns don't
> really support increased road traffic for gas and
> food, or repairs. During the wildfires of the past
> few years, even heavy snow in winter, the best
> case is just turn around and forget about it.

The more reasonable detour would be 299 to Johnson Park and the 89 to Mt. Shasta. Thats the Caltrans detour plan thats in place for Sacramento River Canyon interruption. It does still ad an extra hour twenty to your voyage but not a difficult reroute.

For somebody driving to Mt Shasta or Weed SR 89 is direct but not a good drive during firestorms or snow storms. Burney is not set up for lots of visitors, heard the Casino is a good time though. SR 89 gets some very rowdy traffic as well, lots of calls to CHP. Not a good place to get stranded in bad weather either, spotty cell service, spotty Tow service and CHP coverage since that route is partly Shasta and partly Siskiyou county.

A fair amount of traffic heads to hiway 97 for Bend or Spokane. Its also pretty clean driving to Portland, Seattle or the populated side of BC. I-5 is all sold out in many places, both lanes. But it's good to have options.

             If they hurry the processes along, this bridge could be rebuilt easily by 2075 and surely it would be at . . . . . 'net zero cost'. Is that the proper term used?

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:
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>              If they hurry the processes
> along, this bridge could be rebuilt easily by 2075
> and surely it would be at . . . . . 'net zero
> cost'. Is that the proper term used?

If you knew how long it took them to build the new Lakehead bridge a bit further up from this bridge, you may be in the ball park in terms of the completion date.

Is there water under this bridge right now?  It looks like Lake Shasta is less than 40% capacity and it is only June.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

webmaster Wrote:
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> Is there water under this bridge right now?  It
> looks like Lake Shasta is less than 40% capacity
> and it is only June.

This is the deepest part of the lake and the original river. It will always have water.

In 1978 the lake was way back to the west, it's the Pit River with the McCloud River already combined. The Sacramento goes under I-5 at Antler's / Lakehead and then stays over to the west, near Keswick. It really is an amazing project especially for it's time.

Agree on both the extended time the Contractor spent building their first bridge project at Antler's / Lakehead, also with UPrr could just run everything through SLC / Ogden. They're sitting on five routes out of the state, haha, almost as many as CalTrans has.

dcfbalcoS1 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>              If they hurry the processes
> along, this bridge could be rebuilt easily by 2075
> and surely it would be at . . . . . 'net zero
> cost'. Is that the proper term used?

Should at least have the Environmental Impact Report done by then...  Remember, it is in California.

Actually, if the thing is good to 2040, I'm surprised they are even talking about it before 2039!

Maybe they can drag it into CaHSR and make a real life's work of it.

It'll be just like the bridge over Hoover Dam, I can see it coming.

Out 

TomG Wrote:
-
> The more reasonable detour would be 299 to Johnson
> Park and the 89 to Mt. Shasta. Thats the Caltrans
> detour plan thats in place for Sacramento River
> Canyon interruption. It does still ad an extra
> hour twenty to your voyage but not a difficult
> reroute.

It adds a lot more than an hour and 20 mins when all of I-5 is making the detour with you. Been there, done that.

Posted from iPhone

For those really into it Caltrans has two roadcams overlooking the bridge, pick through this website and map:

https://quickmap.dot.ca.gov/

Not as pretty as 4thDistricts photos but good for traffic and weather... and Lake level.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/23/22 20:33 by TCnR.

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