TOLEDO, Ohio — Officials believe long-term deterioration was the cause of last week’s bridge collapse that blocked Norfolk Southern’s main line through Toledo for more than six hours.
The Toledo Blade reports six beams failed on the Maumee Avenue Bridge about 12:45 p.m. Wednesday, dropping concrete slabs onto the rail line below. [See “Bridge collapses onto NS main line; no injuries reported,” Trains News Wire, April 4, 2019.] It cited a report from a local engineering firm citing the likelihood of long-term deterioration as the cause.
“It is possible that the failure of one of the beams caused a chain reaction to adjacent deficient beams,” the report said.
A Norfolk Southern spokeswoman said the railroad assisted with the cleanup and resumed operations about 7:20 p.m. She declined to say if the railroad might bill the city for its costs from the incident.
Just another example of infrastructure in this country in poor shape . Yes , it was being replaced but it should have been done years ago like a lot of stuff in this country . We have thousands of items in this country that should have been repaired/replaced 10,20,30,40 years ago . We are a country with old infrastructure and no money to fix it . We look like a joke to other countries in the world .
From the previous article, the bridge was closed due to its being replaced. So if they were replacing it, how can you opine that the deterioration was missed or that its defects weren’t being addressed? I checked on this with a separate source who told me that the deck collapsed while the contractor was pile driving for the new abutment behind the old abutment. The deck was going to be demolished and replaced, but had been left in place as the utility companies had not yet finished relocating the utilities that were on the bottom side of the deck. This seems to be more of an error on the part of the contractor over estimating the resiliency left in the deck and under estimating the effects of the vibration from the pile driving.
And Ohio does seem to be addressing their bridges as finances permit. A short distance from this bridge is the bridge over which the Anthony Wayne Trail expressway passes over the NS tracks. When the expressway was built it used the right of way of the filled-in former Miami & Erie Canal. The tracks were bridged using the original cut stone abutments that the railroad had built for the canal viaduct to pass over the tracks in 1853/54. Those stone abutments are still in place, but the bridge is being replaced. After over 165 years of use,the first of the cut stone blocks from the 1850’s are scheduled to be removed this week as part of the renewal of this bridge.
Granted, I have no idea how many deficient bridges are left in the state and what Ohio’s plans are to address them, but they are doing something.
Michael Lampman…it’s also a sign of things to come with America’s infrastructure, expect more of these to occur as time goes on until a major tragedy occurs then the Feds will miraculously find the 100’s of billions of dollars need to fix our country.
“Long term deterioration” is CYA-speak for “we missed that.”