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EASTERN IOWA
CRANDIC bridge might be useable by mid-July
Reporter: Tim Kenyon
tim@corridorbiznews.com
The Cedar Rapids and Iowa City Railway Co. (CRANDIC) estimates a mid-July opening for the replacement bridge over the Cedar River south of Eighth Avenue SW leading to the Penford Products Co. plant in Cedar Rapids.
“It’s finally coming along. Obviously, water held us up for several weeks, but the construction crews are back at it and the concrete is poured and curing,” Jeff Woods, CRANDIC spokesman said last week. “In about a week you’ll see the start of the last steps – steel spans installed on the west side and then they’ll lay rail, install rock and raise some approaches over the next three weeks to maybe about a month.”
That’s the last CRANDIC flood-related repair project, he said.
The bridge work started a few weeks after it fell apart with several cars on it during the June 2008 flood.
“That bridge is instrumental in getting 20,000 cars that should go over it every year,” Mr. Woods said. “It’s an important part of how we serve Penford and it’s really complicated how we serve that customer – instead of pushing cars on the bridge we’ve had to pull them several blocks to the west in one of our yards and do more shuffling. It takes a lot more time.”
CRANDIC, a subsidiary of Alliant Energy, recently received $6.96 million in disaster assistance relief from the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA) Rehabilitation and Repair Program.
Cleanup and new bridge construction cost $9 million. The FRA grant is designed to cover 80 percent of the project.
Overall, CRANDIC sustained $11 million in flood damage.
“We had several hundreds of thousands dollars damage to signals and washouts along lines that ran in Cedar Rapids, in Iowa County through the Amanas and in Coralville,” Mr. Woods said. “We had seven miles of lines under water at one point.”
Waterloo bridge crucial link
Construction is nearing on a replacement for the Union Pacific bridge over the Cedar River in Waterloo. The bridge is used primarily by the Iowa Northern Railway.
“We’ve gotten through all the permitting and put the paperwork barriers behind us. UP (Union Pacific) is leading the project and working with contractors and construction should begin hopefully late this month,” said Josh Sabin, Iowa Northern administration director. “In about 15 to 30 days, we’ll be well under way and are hoping for a Nov. 1 completion date and to be running cars across the bridge.”
The involvement of multiple agencies, coupled with the fact that Union Pacific owns the bridge while Iowa Northern is the main user, delayed and complicated necessary documentation, he said.
The two railroads are splitting rebuilding costs.
Iowa Northern received $2.17 million in FRA funds and another $1 million from the state to go toward the bridge repair. It also received another $630,000 from state funds for track repair last summer.
Iowa Northern is grateful for ADM’s “accommodating” support for the rail company’s situation the past year, he said. Iowa Northern transports thousands of products to ADM annually.
“We’ve been detouring up to 300 miles for the last year,” Mr. Sabin said. “It’s been a very difficult and expensive issue for us so we’re very anxious to be connected with ourselves in Waterloo again.”
He estimated extra expenses run from $250,000 to $1 million monthly depending on the amount of traffic and alternative routes taken from hauling grain from Iowa Northern’s Manly depot.
“Overall, it’s a pretty astronomical tally,” Mr. Sabin said.
Extra locomotive and car maintenance is among major increased expenses because of the extra mileage, he said. CBJ
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