Oregon port prepares for the future, replaces key rail bridge

The Port of Coos Bay in Oregon will be working on stabilizing track, improving rail bridges and increasing the size of tunnels over the next few years.

There is plenty of rail maintenance and construction activity going on at the International Port of Coos Bay in Oregon, and an important phase was recently completed.

A new rail bridge over Coalbank Slough was finished and is now taking on rail traffic. The span will be the only one replaced while others will be rehabilitated along the 120-mile line. Ten steel bridges in the Wild Cat Creek area are marked to be worked on, along with three swing span bridges and the Vaughn Viaduct bridge.

The Coalbank Slough bridge was built back in the early 1900s and was a non-operating deck plate girder swing span bridge. It had been a fixed continuous deck plate girder structure for the last 30 years. The new span connects the last 16.5 miles of the rail line to the north end of the CBRL and provides access to the National Railway Network through the Union Pacific rail yard in Eugene, Ore.

The bridge will help move rail traffic to the Terminal Once facility, which could be the site of a container shipping facility in the coming years.

Projects at the Port of Coos Bay are focusing on the movement of more goods throughout Oregon and the Northwest. The line has a number of tunnels that will need to be increased in size to handle larger loads. Tracks also need to be stabilized.

Read more articles on track maintenance.