Portsmouth Branch Activity

MECFAN wrote:Will they put crossing protection at Green Street so the crew doesn't have to stop and protect, really screws up traffic at Maplewood and Market street when the train is long enough to fowl those two roads.

The project is only $300,000 for the four crossings, so I'm going to guess not. If I remember correctly, it costs that much simply to add proper crossing protection to a single crossing these days.

Would be nice if they tied this into the Portsmouth branch upgrades

Noticed yesterday they have started laying the track on the new bridge starting in the middle and working toward the Portsmouth shoreline. Not sure whats happening on the Kittery side.

DO-1 / 2 ran lite to Rock last night 19:00 and came in with 1 centerbeam and 10 propane at 20:20

ereuter wrote:That would make sense. So probably not.

Eric - as an aside, I wish I could make your Ports-Kittery-York-S Berwick rail presentation Monday night. Unfortunately I will be out of town : (

MECFAN wrote:Noticed yesterday they have started laying the track on the new bridge starting in the middle and working toward the Portsmouth shoreline. Not sure whats happening on the Kittery side.

That's great. Will the track be in the center of the bridge and the car lanes running either side of it?

MECFAN wrote:DO-1 / 2 ran lite to Rock last night 19:00 and came in with 1 centerbeam and 10 propane at 20:20

I have been listening to Eric's broadcastify stream all week hoping to catch DO-1 so I can capture some footage... figures the only activity was after dark. Oh well I will keep trying!

Jonathan603 wrote: That's great. Will the track be in the center of the bridge and the car lanes running either side of it?

That's right. Here's a photo I took a couple weeks ago of the lift span on its way up, just above the highway deck. You can see the rails embedded in the road, forming the median.
https://i.imgur.com/s5E0RdD.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

artman wrote:
Eric - as an aside, I wish I could make your Ports-Kittery-York-S Berwick rail presentation Monday night. Unfortunately I will be out of town : (

I don't know if it makes a difference, but it's Tuesday, not Monday.

ereuter wrote:Here's a photo I took a couple weeks ago of the lift span on its way up, just above the highway deck. You can see the rails embedded in the road, forming the median.
https://i.imgur.com/s5E0RdD.jpg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Headless rail? (Sort of like what CDAC inherited from CP, but that's another topic for another area of the forum )

I'm sure this has already been asked and answered, but how are they going to treat the road surface of the bridge during ice/snow weather without destroying the rails? And who gets the fun job of cleaning sand/dirt/ice/crap out of the flange ways before a train goes over?

MEC407 wrote: Headless rail? (Sort of like what CDAC inherited from CP, but that's another topic for another area of the forum )

What you're seeing there is just the miter rail joint. The rails themselves are conventional.
http://www.cmi-promex.com/products/rail ... iter_rails

MEC407 wrote:I'm sure this has already been asked and answered, but how are they going to treat the road surface of the bridge during ice/snow weather without destroying the rails? And who gets the fun job of cleaning sand/dirt/ice/crap out of the flange ways before a train goes over?

Now that is a very interesting question.

MEC407 wrote:I'm sure this has already been asked and answered, but how are they going to treat the road surface of the bridge during ice/snow weather without destroying the rails? And who gets the fun job of cleaning sand/dirt/ice/crap out of the flange ways before a train goes over?

Without seeing the drawings or the actual construction I would speculate the rails would be designed to be about one half inch below the road surface to prevent damage by road plows and the flangeway would have a provision for water /debris collection below the deck ." Back in the day" it would have been acceptable to let everything fall through the deck in to the river but not today. After a second look at the picture there may be a pan visible under the track to collect such runoff/debris.

You guys are all wrong, the rails are not embedded in the road deck, they're on a separate span underneath, just like on the old bridge.

Those "rails" you took a photo of are just expansion joints in the deck, on either side of the flush median.