ECI – Engineers Construction

ECI was the recipient of the 2024 AGC-VT Best Builder Award for Specialty Innovation – Civil Highway

ECI contracted with VTrans to replace NECR (New England Central Railroad) Bridge 35.01 over Route 14 in Royalton, VT. The existing 26’ clear span bridge was only 12’-1” above the roadway and choked traffic down to a single lane with no signals and a blind approach from each direction. In the past it had been hit hard enough to mangle the outside beams and knock the tracks off alignment, and ECI routinely saw it hit while on site. The new 127’ steel girder bridge has improved vertical clearance of 14’-6” and allowed for Route 14 to be realigned so it is now 30’ wide from shoulder to shoulder with clear visibility and a traveling speed of 35mph.

The contractor provided for two full construction seasons with four relatively short railroad closures. The bridge is supported by two precast concrete cap beams which each sit on two drilled shaft foundations. The drilled shafts allowed for accelerated construction since the shafts were able to be in-stalled during normal rail traffic. Once everything was completed outside of the travel lanes and with two short railroad closures to install the new abutments there was a 21-day highway closure and a 134-hour railroad closure.

During the railroad closure crews worked around the clock to excavate between the previously installed abutments, remove the temporary bridge, set precast wingwalls, backwalls and approach slabs.

We then set the new bridge with a Self-Propelled Modular Transporter and restore the tracks. Once the railroad was open we continued work on the road realignment and had it open to the public 8 days ahead of schedule.