HAW RIVER - State transportation crews are working on a two-mile stretch of a rail right-of-way in Haw River and Graham for installation of a passing track. The project is among improvements to the railroad corridor aimed at reducing congestion and travel time between Raleigh and Charlotte, and involves a lot more than simply laying the new track.

Crews have cleared 10 acres of trees and debris since work got underway in December. When the clearing is completed, workers will have moved about 200,000 cubic yards of dirt to prepare the ground for the new passing siding track.

"That's about 20,000 dump truck loads of dirt that has to be moved on this project to build it," said Chris Kirkman, NCDOT resident construction engineer.

It's just one of several steps in the project.

"We're putting in some drainage pipe and we have a lot of pipe we have to bore-inject under the railroad," said Kirkman. They'll grade the track bed and use explosives to deal with the large amount of rock in the area.

"There is a lot of rock that was already known in our information that will have to be drilled and blast," Kirkman said.

Erosion control figures in the project, too.

"We're putting in devices to control when it rains, Kirkman said. We have rainfall vents to control any type of movement and sediment, and we also have devices that are called skimmers that are put in basins to release the water at a certain rate, a flow rate."

NCDOT said the new passing siding track will allow trains to pass one another, eliminating the current bottleneck along a 22-mile stretch between McLeansville and Mebane. Kirkman said Reconstructing curves on the existing track also would improve track speeds.

"The main line we'll have a different horizontal alignment and it won't be as curvy as the existing alignment," he said

Read more:
NCDOT clearing right-of-way for railroad siding track

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April 23, 2014 at 6:53 am by Mr HomeBuilder
Category: Siding Installation