Century-old, deep-cover railway culvert completely replaced in a weekend
CN Rail needed to replace a failed culvert within a 65-hour weekend work block and our Dur-A-Span Structural Aluminum Plate Culvert, and a highly organized construction team, were ready for the challenge.
Last train Friday 15:23, first train Monday 07:12
The old culvert was about 9 m under the trackbed, so significant time was needed just to excavate 3,100 cubic meters of material, demolish and remove it, prepare the foundation for the new structure, lift that into place and backfill it. We delivered our components to the site well ahead of time to ensure it was preassembled and ready before the weekend.
Original concrete culvert dated back to 1914
The old culvert was built over 100 years ago and was in very bad shape. It had been relined many years ago with corrugated steel pipe, which was also in poor shape. A 25,000 LPM stream diversion was also constructed ahead of the weekend construction window.
Lightweight Dur-A-Span — perfect for the big lift
The project called for a 37 m culvert that would weigh less than 8,000 kg but was strong enough to support the high cover and, of course, the trains. Dur-A-Span was the obvious choice. The fact that it was corrosion/abrasion resistant to withstand the harsh realities of this coastal region was a bonus.
