Flood of 2019: IAIS/Rock Island 1900 Quadrangular Trusses near Booneville, IA (Update: bridge replacement)

(Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; John Marvig; IAIS Plans (but you need a login to access the info!); Facebook Group; Satellite)

This is a win-win posting. It not only shows the impact of the 2019 flood, it documents a double-lattice truss bridge that is soon going to be replaced. Note in the satellite image that the two eastern spans are normally over land. In these photos, water is under all four spans.

Screenshot
[The river is flowing fast. At least there are no ice slabs on it.]

A street view shows us a more normal river level.

Street View

Chris C J Johnson posted 20 images with the comment: "Built in 1900 for The CRI&P the Booneville, Iowa Bridge over the Raccoon River will be replaced by IAIS in the Summer of 2019.
High Water•3/17/19"

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I did not include the last two images because I recognized them as a copy of John Marvig's work.

John Marvig

The bridge is being replaced. Saving the satellite image because the truss has nice shadows and is probably going to disappear.

Satellite

Booneville Rail Bridge 1900-2020 posted videos and photos with the comment: "1900 CRI&P/IAIS Bridge Replacement Update 3/26/20   Booneville, Iowa"
Chris C J Johnson shared

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 The videos show the caisson sheet being turned.

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Chris C J Johnson posted
Truck bringing in one of the 55’+ long rebar inserts for the pier caissons being drilled into the riverbed.

Chris C J Johnson posted
[The various sized augurs surprised me. Do they start with a small hole and then keep increasing the size until they get to the caisson diameter? Or are the caissons of different diameters? Or does the contractor bring all of his equipment to every site?]

I don't know what they are doing here. It is obviously of a smaller diameter. Note the poured caisson with rebar sticking out doesn't have any steel around it. Can they pull the steel shell back out and reuse them? Or did they cut off the top?

Chris C J Johnson posted

The above must be drilling a pilot hole because I think this is in the same location.

Chris C J Johnson posted

Chris C J Johnson posted  (perm)

Chris C J Johnson posted some photos with the comment: "Booneville Bridge 4/11/20."

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Chris C J Johnson posted some photos with the comment: "IAIS/CRI&P Bridge Replacement Booneville, Iowa May 9, 2020"
Chris C J Johnson shared
Chris C J Johnson Built in 1900 by the Chicago Rock Island & Pacific Railroad (CRI&P) and now used by The Iowa Interstate Railroad (IAIS).
Located just 1/4 mile West of the small town of Booneville, Iowa this bridge and its four trusses spanning 632 feet cross the Raccoon River.
Progress vs. History.
After 119 years-A new bridge will be built on the Southside of the old bridge and the old bridge will be demolished.
This Facebook group is “Public”
Please feel free to invite your friends to this group and you are welcome to share all postings.
C JMike Brady Any builders plates on it, hate to see all these truss bridges scrapped.
Chris C J Johnson Mike Brady My understanding is that IAIS is replacing and demoing them all...2019 it was the 1800’s era bridge over Walnut Creek in DSM.
C J

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This is the photo that Facebook chose when Brendan J Dock shared the post
[I didn't think American cranes still existed. I associate that brand with cute little railroad cranes.]

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[They use just steel-pile bents on the bank as opposed to concrete piers.]

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Chris C J Johnson commented on the above photo
CRI&P Rivet Coal Fired Rivet Forge.
These rivets were heated and thrown to a leather or asbestos blanket held by the workers putting in the rivets with a steam powered hammer.

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[He has several more closeups of this 1900 pin-connected truss.]

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[There are several other photos recording the closeness of the two bridges. Chris commented: "A great challenge to the future demo company of the 1900 bridge being that close I would guess!"]

When I noticed that a pier seemed to be slanted in one of Chris' photos, I looked for it in street view. Srue enough, IAIS had to repair a pier damaged by the 2019 flood.

Street View

One of several photos posted by Chris C J Johnson
The last section is in.  5-23-20

The new railroad bridge was needed as the truss bridge had met the end of its functional use. Two of its piers had tilted due to years of flooding and erosion. Others had cracks and were spalling. The new 661 foot multiple-span bridge will carry train traffic of up to 40 mph- double of that of the railroad bridge)- and trains will be able to carry taller and heavier loads. The $3.5 million project was half funded by the federal government through the Federal Railroad Agency through the use of Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) grant. It took only 17 months to build the new span. It’s part of the 20+ year project to modernize the entire line and will include additional bridge replacements in the future, including three bridges in Davenport- the 3rd and 4th Street Overpasses and the Arsenal Bridge. [BridgeHuntersChronicles]

They got rid of the old bridge in just three weeks in July, 2020 after the new bridge opened June 30, 2020.

Two nuclear plants are being built after a 30 year hiatus in USA

Satellite

energy.gov

I was surprised when I saw a link to the video below in a crane group in Facebook. I had no idea that more nuclear power plants were being built in the USA.
(new window) This video suffers from the modern fad of having a bunch of short closeup views. I wish it also had included an overview of the Lampson transi-lift transitioning from walking to turning by rotating the back crawler tracks 90 degrees.

Technology:
Two Westinghouse AP1000 (Advanced Passive) nuclear units
About 1,117 megawatts each
Productivity and Progress:
Significant progress continued in December at the Vogtle nuclear expansion site near Waynesboro, Georgia with the placement of nearly 1,300 cubic yards of concrete inside the Unit 4 containment vessel. The continuous placement lasted 21 hours, and involved more than 100 workers and more than 120 truckloads of concrete.
[GeorgiaPower]

Construction photos    It is significant that there are 2019 photos on that page of photos. In 2018, because of cost overruns, there was a significant possibility of aborting the project. I haven't bothered to read the articles to see if the shareholders, federal taxpayers, and/or power company customers are getting screwed. [EEnews, SeekingAlpha]

SeekingAlpha

TECHNOLOGY INNOVATION

Vogtle Units 3 and 4 are the first U.S. deployment of the AP1000 Generation III+ reactor. The AP1000 was designed as the next-generation nuclear reactor that could provide a standardized design for the U.S. utilities market. The reactor is an evolutionary improvement over existing reactors, featuring advanced safety systems. For example, the AP1000 can shut down passively without external power or human intervention. The AP1000 is built with modules manufactured off-site and then assembled onsite. This has the potential to improve quality and eases construction when compared to the last generation of nuclear reactors built in the U.S. In addition, the AP1000 has a smaller footprint and simpler design, and uses less piping, valves, and pumps than older designs.
[energy.gov]

The two new units will support 800 jobs. At first that sounds good. But I asked myself a long time ago: why does it take so many people to run a nuclear plant? Not only is there the obvious issue of labor costs, more people increases the opportunity for human error. ComEd plants would talk about 400 employees for a plant that has two units. So technology improvements have evidently not improved operational costs. Plus we still can't bury our nuclear waste in a mountain in Nevada.

The AP1000 design is a refinement of the two-loop pressurized water reactor design developed for nuclear submarines in the 1950s. It is not a new design such as a fast breeder reactor that creates fuel instead of nuclear waste (and potentially bombs).  I wish we had spent federal money making nuclear power economic and safe rather than continue to put people in space. (I do agree with putting scientific missions into space, just not people.) A related issue is that I remember in the 1980s that fusion was going to be working by the year 2000.

NoNukesYall