The bridge span was put back in place with the help of a crane from Myshak Crane and Rigging Ltd.

3 November 2011

Overpass Back in Place

Lloydminster Alberta - At approximately 11 a.m. on Tuesday, the Canadian Pacific Railway overpass damaged in an accident on 11 Oct 2011 was reinstalled while the stretch of Highway 16 was closed to motorists for safety.
 
"To the credit of both the City of Lloydminster and Saskatchewan Highways Department, we have received tremendous co-operation," said CPR spokesman Mike Lovecchio over the phone on Tuesday afternoon.
 
"It has been consistent since the incident started. What you saw (on Monday) was a coordinated communications plan that really started before the weekend to advise drivers that Highway 16 would be closed today, so that the span could be reinstalled."
 
Lovecchio went on to explain the process that work crews went through today in order to have the bridge back up and operational as soon as possible, minimizing the inconvenience for commuters.
 
"Once the lift is complete, the span needs to be secured," he said. "Once it is secure, they will go up on the bridge structure itself, where they have to put up what we call track panels, which are tracks and railroad ties that are prefabricated. Connect those, weld them in place, then the final inspections occur."
 
But, Lovecchio said, a lot of the work was done before the bridge even got back to Lloydminster, it was sent to Edmonton for repairs.
 
"While the bridge span was out being repaired, we had time to develop a plan for today," he said. "We have been able to plan ahead to have all the necessary pieces in place and advance. That included weather proofing the span itself, which was one of the final steps that had to be taken before the span was lifted back up this morning."
 
The bridge span was put back in place with the help of a crane from Myshak Crane and Rigging Ltd.
 
"We do a lot of recovery, a lot of derailment recovery," said Myshak president Corey Mitchell. "We work very closely with the rail companies for when they have unfortunate circumstances or they have a rail car derail. We've got a lot of very skilled guys and the right equipment."
 
Myshak was the company that helped remove the bridge span in the first place, because they had their 500-ton, all-terrain crane already in Lloydminster working on another site, when the incident occurred.
 
"I wouldn't say that we've had to rescue an overpass before, it's not very often," added Mitchell from Myshak's head office in Edmonton. "Typically in these circumstances, when guys hit them they're concrete. Our client was very gracious to allow us to demobilize the crane to go help out the unfortunate fellow that hit that overpass."
 
Work was finished on schedule on Tuesday night and Highway 16, allowing commuters to return to their regular traffic patterns on Wednesday.
 
Katie Ryan.