Innovative Railroad Bridge Projects [B4] 2025

Steel is the material of choice for many railroad bridge projects. This session will highlight two complex railroad bridge projects that feature innovative approaches in steel design. First is a Norfolk Southern Railway's rehabilitation program for the 120+ year-old B-184.50 “Nickel Plate” viaduct in Cleveland, OH. The project features a versatile temporary modular shoring system designed to save material costs, significantly limit required track outages, and provides superstructure support for tower bents by selectively combining prefabricated structural steel sub-assemblies.

The second is a BNSF Railway Company program to develop a modular Through Plate Girder design for the purpose of shortening railroad service interruptions in an emergency bridge outage scenarios. A TPG capable of replacing an array of span length and skew combinations will minimize the exposure of long-term interruptions in the event of losing a “minimum clearance span” due to bridge strikes, natural disasters, and other catastrophic incidents. This presentation will discuss the drivers behind developing this design, the criteria selected for span application parameters, how structural steel suits the solution and design considerations for modular application.

Speaker(s): Lisa Hoekenga, Ruth Brown, Garrett Havens, Jansen Bundridge, Luke Kazmer