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Union
Pacific Train Wreck
Sulfur River
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| At 3:00 PM, Sunday, March 11th,
Marty Hunter of Hunter Demolition contacted Jared Redyke with an
emergency job.
A Union Pacific freight train derailed on the bridge over
the Sulphur River, near Naples, Texas. The wreck took out
two of the bridge piers in the middle of the river.
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No injuries, no casualties, and no hazardous waste in the
river. But the railroad line was paralyzed until a new
bridge could be constructed.
The exact cause of the derailment was not known but
track failure was suspected. The freight cars tore through the
bridge decking and sheared 2 piers off and left them in the middle of
the river with bridge beams, rail cars, and cargo lying on top of them. |
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The pilings for the new bridge
could not be driven until these concrete piers were moved out of
the way.
Hulcher Services was onsite 24 hours a day pulling the
wrecked freight cars from the river. Hunter Demolition was
in charge of removing those concrete bridge piers from the path
of the new bridge being constructed from both ends, 24 hours a
day.
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The water over the reinforced concrete piers was so deep
that it was making mechanical methods of concrete demolition
difficult and time consuming. The bridge had to be
completed and the railroad line opened as soon as possible.
New bridge construction was coming from both sides and meeting in the
middle of the river, and time was growing short. The bridge crew
would soon have to stop if those piers weren't out of the way.
There was only one way to get those underwater piers demolished on
schedule.
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| Dykon arrived onsite, ready to go,
at 1:30 AM, Monday morning, March 12th, less than 8 hours after
being called.
Following a 6:00 AM meeting with the onsite project
managers, Marty Hunter with Hunter Demolition ordered floating
barge sections for Dykon's drilling equipment to work off of.
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The next task was to get this equipment to the wreck
site. There was no road access to the site closer than
half a mile. Everything had to be loaded on freight cars,
railed in and offloaded with cranes into the work area.
Working together with an army of on-site contractors, work began on
the explosive demolition of the underwater piers laying in the bottom of
the Sulphur river. The first step was to drill the holes for the
charges into the underwater pier sections which had been torn loose from
the footings from the impact of the loaded freight cars when they fell
through the existing bridge decking and were left in the bottom of the
river directly in the path of the new bridge being constructed.
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There were two piers that
had to be removed. The first was under ten feet of water
with very little current to deal with. Tons and tons of
ballast were hauled in to support the equipment which was
removing the tangled freight cars from over the top of the pier
sections.
The drill barge was held steady with an excavator setting
on top of the ballast. holes were drilled from the surface
of the water and sleeved with PVC pipes which would later be
used to load the explosives through, and into the holes drilled
in the piers.
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| Once the first one was demolished,
work began immediately on the second pier. The second pier
was the toughest one. It was in the bottom of the deepest
part of the sulphur river, right in the center of the channel
where the current was the swiftest, under 18 feet of
water.
There was no ballast out in the river for equipment to set
on and steady Dykon's drill barge. Divers were sent down
to locate the corners of the pier.
Alpha Pile & Railroad provided a huge spud barge
anchored in place to hold the smaller drill barge steady while
the holes were drilled into the piers for the explosives.
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The water in the center of the channel was so deep and swift that the
pvc pipes could not be stabbed into the drilled holes from the
surface. Divers were sent down to help case the holes as they were
drilled. |
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When the drilling was completed,
the explosives used for demolishing the piers was loaded through
the pvc pipe casings.
Then all barges and equipment were moved away from the
shot area to protect them from the mild water wake that would
result from the explosion under the water.
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The project was completed safely, successfully and quickly.
There were numerous on-site contractors who contributed to the success
of this project. This project could not have been completed in the
time it was without the hard work and coordination of all of the
contractors present.
Dykon would like to extend our personal thanks to everyone
involved for the manner in which the work was coordinated and carried
out. You couldn't ask for a better group to work with. We
were honored to be able to work with such a group of professionals in
the expeditious completion of the project and the restoring of the Union
Pacific Railroad to its normal activity. |
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See our Online
Photo Album of the project |
See a video clip of the blasting |
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Project contact information |
John E. Dunsworth
Director of Bridge Maintenance
Union Pacific Railroad
281-350-7519 |
Marty Hunter
Hunter Demolition, Inc.
San Antonio, Texas
210-227-5100
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Hulcher Professional Services, Inc.
Ft. Worth, Texas Office
817-306-0447 |
Alpha Railroad, Inc.
George Dupont
318-377-8720
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G & G Marine
Dan Gilbert
Houston, Texas
281-367-8352 |
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