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By Brady Slater
Duluth News Tribune
Drivers can expect daytime closures of the Oliver Bridge later this month as Canadian National Railway Co. begins a multi-year maintenance and strengthening project on the bridge.
Work on the 106-year-old double-deck, nearly 2,000-foot-long steel truss bridge that connects the Gary-New Duluth neighborhood with Oliver will begin April 27, CN announced Wednesday.
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The work is mostly concentrated on the bridge’s upper deck that carries rail traffic across the St. Louis River, but it will necessitate closures of the two-lane highway below. The highway portion of the bridge will be closed to traffic on weekdays from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“It’s a pretty substantial project,” said CN spokesman Patrick Waldron. “We’ll have crews working on top of the rail portion and don’t want cars passing underneath.”
CN owns the bridge and is contracting the work. Waldron said CN has worked with the Minnesota and Wisconsin departments of transportation on the closure signage. Additionally, in the fall, Waldron said CN expects there will be two extended road closures to accommodate span replacements at each end of the bridge.
About 20 trains pass across the bridge every day. Trains that originate in Winnipeg, Manitoba and travel south through International Falls bound for Chicago use the Oliver Bridge. Trains headed north come out of CN’s yard near Superior and cross the Oliver Bridge into northern Minnesota and on to Canada. CN will schedule trains around the work, Waldron said.
“It’s pretty common,” Waldron said. “They call it a work block – set a period of time for crews to get out on the infrastructure and then they finish and they’re out of the way.”
The bridge is on the same railroad line as CN’s recently completed $40 million Steelton Hill double track project – work most noticeable to drivers traveling along Becks Road.
Waldron refrained from giving the precise cost of the Oliver Bridge renovation, calling it a “multi-year, multi-million dollar project,” and including it into the $1.5 billion he said the company expects to spend on all of its infrastructure projects in 2016.
“Every year we’re fixing track and fixing bridges in various locations,” Waldron said.
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Work will extend through November this year.
The company did not say how much of the work it expects will remain for completion in 2017. Work being done includes full replacement of two 90-foot spans at the east and west ends of the bridge, steel strengthening of 30 bridge spans and upgrades to the bridge deck and rail, CN said in its news release.
The highway will remain open on certain high-traffic days throughout the summer. It will remain open all day on Memorial Day, July 4, Labor Day and for Tall Ships Duluth on August 18-19.
The road will open at noon on June 17 prior to Grandma’s Marathon, August 11 for Bayfront Blues Festival, Sept. 5 prior to the NorthShore Inline Marathon and May 27 and Sept. 2, the Fridays before Memorial and Labor days, respectively.
The bridge connects Wisconsin Highway 105 to Minnesota Highway 39. According to the Minnesota Department of Transportation, the bridge opened to rail traffic in 1910, with the lower deck opening to vehicle traffic in 1916.
The bridge was built with the capability of swinging open to allow ships to travel up the St. Louis River, but has not opened since 1947, according to a MnDOT report.
The lower deck was extensively renovated, with the old wood decking replaced by concrete, in 2001 – a project that closed the bridge to vehicle traffic for months.
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