Eastern Railroad Discussion > OT: Mississippi River traffic closed at Memphis-REOPENED MAY 14

This could be on either the Eastern or the Western Board - since the Tennessee DOT is responsible for maintenance and repair, how about here?

A critical bridge member on the Memphis I-40 bridge over the Mississippi River between Tennessee and Arkansas has failed, closing the bridge  and halting Interstate and river traffic indefinitely.  This apparently happened Tuesday but since highway traffic can detour over the I-55 bridge it's flown under the radar.  Wall Street Journal did have a short story on this today.  As of the writing of this article 229 barges were being held.  This is a major blockage as there is a tremendous amount of traffic on the lower Mississippi River.

https://www.wmcactionnews5.com/2021/05/12/barge-traffic-standstill-wake-bridge-closure/

 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/21 17:18 by Jimbo.

Reading about this early today, apparently they some infrastructure money going to it:

Seriously, here's some info on Bridgehunter with numerous photos, #36 shows the crack:
http://bridgehunter.com/tn/shelby/desoto



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/21 14:07 by TCnR.

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Great idea! A little duct tape will take care of that right away! ;-D

(“East Texas Chrome” is how we used to refer to it back in the day.)

CW

Posted from iPhone

If they would have painted it to match no one would be any the wiser.

TCnR Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Reading about this early today, apparently they
> some infrastructure money going to it:
>
> Seriously, here's some info on Bridgehunter with
> numerous photos, #36 shows the crack:
> http://bridgehunter.com/tn/shelby/desoto


When they get the infrastructure money, do they replace the tape woth JB Weld?

Posted from iPhone

Doug Wetherhold
Macungie, PA

Crack?

We don't see no stinking crack!

Chuck

Seriously, how do you fix it?

Make some sort of huge clamp to line the pieces up so that you can weld them?

They did something like this to replace an eyebar on the old thru truss portion of the SF Bay bridge, basically try to load the bridge with concrete blocks in just the right place and then wait to see what happens over a 24 hour temperature excursion.  I would think they would rivet or weld large metal plates across the problem beam or redesign and replace the nearby structural joint, but that's pure speculation. It will be interesting to see what they do, they also have to determine why the beam broke and what new stress it caused, etc.

More info from Engineering News-Record. 
https://www.enr.com/articles/51740-fractured-beam-may-close-key-mississippi-river-crossing-for-months
 

Something very similar to this happened several years ago to the Sherman Minton bridge that carries I-64 between Kentucky and Indiana. a crack was found in a critical portion of the bridge.The bridge was built by Indiana and they maintain it. When the Indiana Governor was told of the crack he immediately ordered it closed. It stayed closed for several months while they added reinforcement to the bridge. There was talk of allowing traffic to cross the K&I railroad bridge which is owned by NS and actually had a roadway on each side of the track, but NS refused to allow it. The bridge Used to be open for automobile traffic, but was closed in 1979 after an overweight truck crashed through the deck.

ctillnc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> More info from Engineering News-Record. 
> https://www.enr.com/articles/51740-fractured-beam-
> may-close-key-mississippi-river-crossing-for-months

Thanks for that interesting article,

"Fatigue-type fracture"  makes me wonder if someone should be thinking about a replacement bridge sooner than later.
 

Gorilla glue

Bloomburg is reporting that the Mississippi River has reopened today at Memphis, freeing over 1,000 barges that that had been stranded.  The river had been closed since Tuesday when a large crack was discovered in the I-40 bridge between Tennessee and Arkansas.  The report says the backlog may be cleared by the first of the week.  It's still unclear how long the bridge will be closed, but road traffic can detour on the nearby I-55 bridge.

Jim

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-05-14/u-s-coast-guard-reopens-mississippi-river-to-barge-traffic?cmpid=BBD051421_BIZ&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=210514&utm_campaign=bloombergdaily



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/14/21 17:17 by Jimbo.