Merrimack River Bridge in Haverhill

[sery2831]

Both tracks over the bridge are in service as of this weekend. It is unknown when the number 1 side will be removed from service.

[BostonUrbEx]

The No. 1 track is already out as of today.

[StefanW]

I didn't see this posted earlier in the discussion; apologies if it was.

The bid page has a couple of very detailed PDFs on it:
https://www.bidx.com/mbta/proposal?contid=B64CN01
(Downloads on the right side.)

One of them - "Addendum No. 2" - has lots of scary photos of rusty beams, plus detailed engineering drawings of the structure. Warning: it's 22 MB.

[jbvb]

Easterly (downstream) track had no rail on 2 Nov., but tie plates are in place and a crew was working on the easterly track on the overpass east of the Haverhill platform.

[swist]

You have to ride on the East side of the train going over the bridge to see everything. The progress is like watching grass grow, but it is happening. You can see the east side is almost rehabbed.

[swist]

Nothing posted here for a while - cross the bridge twice a week and they actually seem to be approaching an end game. No more sandblasting tents/equipment. The substructure on the east side appears pretty much renovated and looks like all the ties and tie plates are back. You would think rail is coming soon. Can't see under the bridge from the train but it does look like the large work barges that have been moored there are gone.

Does anyone know when this is supposed to get done.

[swist]

And rail has been installed!

[tobeornot2be]

The downriver side (Track 1?) appeared to be back in service this morning. Tie clips were installed, barricades removed, and the rail looked to be recently used. Any idea when the speed restriction might be removed? It appears they installed continuous rail on the recently redone side, but, from the train, the other side feels like jointed - is that the reason to again close the upriver side?

[swist]

We Downeaster riders have been waiting a long time for a speed increase through there, but more importantly the restoration of double track all the way from south of Andover MA to Plaistow NH on a very busy line. It is almost a given that some southbound trains will have to wait north of HHL for a northbound train to clear.
I would also note that the 15 mph speed restriction seems to involve more than the bridge as it seem to run as far as the west end of the Bradford MBTA yard, so there may be other work involved (of which I am ignorant).

[Trinnau]

The downriver side (Track 1?) appeared to be back in service this morning. Tie clips were installed, barricades removed, and the rail looked to be recently used. Any idea when the speed restriction might be removed? It appears they installed continuous rail on the recently redone side, but, from the train, the other side feels like jointed - is that the reason to again close the upriver side?

Your tracks are correct, and good guess, they are supposed to close track 2 again one final time to touch up a few things then install new rail.

We Downeaster riders have been waiting a long time for a speed increase through there, but more importantly the restoration of double track all the way from south of Andover MA to Plaistow NH on a very busy line. It is almost a given that some southbound trains will have to wait north of HHL for a northbound train to clear.
I would also note that the 15 mph speed restriction seems to involve more than the bridge as it seem to run as far as the west end of the Bradford MBTA yard, so there may be other work involved (of which I am ignorant).

Not sure when the speeds get increased but I would guess they still have to wait for the work to conclude. The other restriction is a 20mph over the switches to the layover yard and hand-operated crossovers just inbound of Bradford Station - this has to do with operating rules and not any particular issue. This only goes away if those crossovers are either taken out of service, have electric locks or are powered. The T probably isn't hot on this because all their trains make Bradford anyway, and their double-decker cars have a 10mph restriction on the short road bridge between Bradford and the river.

[Rockingham Racer]

I imagine the Bradford curve won't be much higher than it's traditional 35 MPH restriction. A powered crossover at Brad would give the dispatcher some operating flexibility for movements into/out of Haverhill.

[BostonUrbEx]

The Merrimack River Bridge's third outage phase has been moved up and is effective after the passage of Train 208 on Monday, February 5th. Barring snow (ha!) it should be back in a couple months. I'm guessing the MBTA is gunning for a new Spring schedule to reflect the bridge's completion.

[swist]

The bridge was two-way as of Monday Feb 12. As a matter of fact there was an event we haven't seen in a while 681 & 682 passed each other on the bridge.

[BostonUrbEx]

MBTA went into Monday the 12th expecting the outage to happen, but nobody told Pan Am to put out a bulletin. Should have finally happened yesterday.

[swist]

Is thing done? I crossed on the upriver track again for the first time in a while.