Augusta Lower Road

Be that as it may, the power draw from LED flashers that only flash when triggered by an over-height vehicle must be pretty low...?

MEC407 wrote:Be that as it may, the power draw from LED flashers that only flash when triggered by an over-height vehicle must be pretty low...?

The LED's, yes. You still have the cameras, the sensors themselves, radios and then the internet connection, more than just the LED's.

Eric

My CMP bill is usually around $25 a month and that includes a big TV, a computer, a stereo, lighting, and multiple kitchen appliances. Can't imagine this bridge protection setup would use more juice than that. Not sure how much it costs the city every time there's a bridge strike in terms of manpower, but if anyone knows or can provide an educated estimate, it might be interesting to compare. At this point I'm mostly just curious.

Safe bet for police response is $40/hour. For an incident such as this involving a commercial vehicle you'll probably have the State Police Commercial Vehicle Enforcement show up as well. I would guess somewhere in the range of $100/hour for that. Giving the benefit of the doubt to PAR I'll assume that they don't inspect the bridge when it gets hit (could be wrong) so no costs there.

I would conservatively estimate that the cost to Augusta and the State of Maine for these incidents is at least $500 per occurrence. If a bridge inspection by MDOT is required afterwards I would tack on at least another $500. Inspection with engineer review would be at least $1,500. System installation for something like this is probably upwards of $5,000 with ongoing operating costs of about $50 per month (cell phone/landline/electricity/inspections/maintenance).

I would say that right now it is probably very close to being a justifiable expense to install an overheight vehicle detection system with amber flashers similar to what is located on the Turnpike just south of Augusta. The key difference here is that you would probably want protection on both sides. If the bridge ever gets reused for rail purposes I would say that MDOT, the City of Augusta and PAR should insist on having such protection installed.

gokeefe wrote:System installation for something like this is probably upwards of $5,000 with ongoing operating costs of about $50 per month (cell phone/landline/electricity/inspections/maintenance).

George,

More in the neighborhood of $180,000.

Eric

ericofmaine wrote:

gokeefe wrote:System installation for something like this is probably upwards of $5,000 with ongoing operating costs of about $50 per month (cell phone/landline/electricity/inspections/maintenance).

George,

More in the neighborhood of $180,000.

Eric

Really? Wow...why so much? Expensive components I take it?

gokeefe wrote:

ericofmaine wrote:

gokeefe wrote:System installation for something like this is probably upwards of $5,000 with ongoing operating costs of about $50 per month (cell phone/landline/electricity/inspections/maintenance).

George,

More in the neighborhood of $180,000.

Eric

Really? Wow...why so much? Expensive components I take it?

Yes. Traffic signals tied in to the grid with sensors or signal cycles are surprisingly expensive buggers. An independent flashing yellow light set to just blink in a vacuum is one thing; any 'interactivity' to outside stimuli is where the bulk of the cost and more stringent testing requirements lay.

And yet again, another hit to the trestle yesterday.

http://www.centralmaine.com/2015/09/03/ ... n-trestle/

Pan Am has been doing trackwork on the Augusta Branch and recently dropped some gravel ballast.

See this thread for photos from Derek Carpine.

Those are rip rip cars not ballast. They must have had some bad erosion or a wash out.

I'm not sure if others are aware of this small engineering detail of the Lower Road or not, but I was surprised by it.

There are two small bridges in Bowdoinham where the tracks cross over Denham Stream just before it meets the Cathance River.

On somewhat closer inspection this past weekend I realized that they are ballast bridges that used timber construction. They look quite old.

This form of construction was in my mind just another reminder of the importance attached to this route by the Maine Central. I have never seen ballast bridges anywhere else, certainly not on any of the old branchlines. But here they were.

The abutments were granite block reinforced with concrete and the bridge beams were steel I-beam underneath the timber ballast deck.

One comes to mind: the tracks that cross over Park Avenue, in the area of Hadlock Field and the Hood Milk Plant in Portland, are supported by a relatively wide ballasted track bridge. It used to carry six tracks, a double- maybe four track main line at that point- plus a couple of leads for the coach yard at Union Station. Only one track now.
A great shot of it on Google Earth.

I think the bridge over Broadway in South Portland originally carried a ballasted track, it doesn't look like it now.
S

There are a few ballasted-deck bridges on the B&M in Maine, too. The long one immediately west of the Saco Amtrak station is one very visible example.

What's the purpose of the ballast bridges? I know NHN has one, as well as the NH Main line in Hooksett going over the Merrimack River.

Discussion of ballasted railroad bridges here:
http://forums.railfan.net/forums.cgi?bo ... 1111672974" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;