Grand Ave/BUS 51 over WI Central Ltd Railroad

This urban structure rehabilitation project consisted of various improvements to an existing 3-span continuous steel deck girder bridge that carries Business 51 (Grand Avenue) over a single-track facility owned and operated by the WI Central Ltd Railroad (owned by CNRR). The project scope included joint replacement, bearing replacement, full superstructure painting and a concrete masonry overlay under three construction stages and within the confines of a busy urban environment.

Challenges included railroad coordination and staging.

Railroad Coordination: CORRE staff worked closely with the NC Region’s Railroad Coordinator and WisDOT’s Bureau of Rails & Harbors to develop mutually-agreeable timelines/windows for construction, as this section of track sees approximately two trains/day on average. One of the largest challenges was coordinating the appropriate paint removal/blasting operations as the railroad requires no restrictions within certain distances of the track. This resulted in the necessity to use multiple paint-removal techniques on the structure, as well as rigid time windows to apply the new paint coating system within the span directly over the tracks.

Staging: Construction took place over three stages. Staging of the different operations required multiple meetings with both WisDOT and city officials due to busy intersections being located near both approaches, and the significant amount of traffic along this corridor. The AADT of Grand Avenue is slightly over 28,000 vehicles per day.