Two new rail bridges now carry CN and CSXT trains over once-bucolic Farm Lane Road at the south end of the Michigan State campus.

by Tom Judge, editor

After decades of planning, the Farm Lane Underpass project on the campus of Michigan State University is becoming a reality. Over MSU’s 153-year history, what started as a small two-track road, Farm Lane, has transformed into a primary access arterial for pedestrians and vehicular traffic heading into the heart of campus. Two separate railroad main lines cross this road within 2,100 feet of one another just south of the main campus, leading to increasing traffic problems and  safety issues for the hundreds of students using the crossings each day.

When complete, each of the two bridges will span five lanes of traffice, plus bike lanes and sidewalks on each side.

Studies beginning in the 1950s indicated that a grade separation was needed at each of the at-grade crossings. Bergmann Associates was selected in 2007 to perform the design of this project.

The two new rail bridges will become recognizable landmarks associated with the university. The corridor will be comprised of five traffic lanes, with bicycle paths and sidewalks on each side of the roadway and landscaping throughout. The road will serve as a transition from an area dominated by agricultural research to the university’s central campus located north of the project. The Farm Lane roadway profile will be lowered beneath the existing tracks requiring up to 20 feet of excavation. In the area between the two railroad crossings, the profile will resurface to meet existing grade. The new horizontal alignment shifts Farm Lane  to the west to avoid impacts to the century-old Baker Woodlot, an environmentally-sensitive area.

CSX Transportation operates 5-10 trains per day across Farm Lane, while CN operated about 40 trains per day. There are two tracks on each bridge. CN has two main lines while CSXT has a main track and a siding.

While the bridges were under construction, the two railroads operated trains over separate double shoo fly track runarounds. CSXT chose to have a contractor build the shoo fly tracks for its trains. MSU is the owner of the bridges, but Michigan DOT administered the construction contract. The contractor that was hired to actually build the project built the shoo flies for CSXT.

“The CN bridge and shoo flies were a little different,” said Jeremy Hedden, project engineer for Bergmann. “CN forces did the final ballasting and track construction and they hired a contractor to build the roadbed and do the pre-ballasting. CN did final ballasting, track construction and the track tie ins. The main contractor for the project is Posen Construction. US Trackworks as subcontractor did the rail work.”

Dealing with two wetlands on either side of Farm Lane near the CN bridge was one of the engineering challenges that had to be dealt with during construction.

Close coordination

“One of the things we did that’s a little unique for this project—which was a big help in continuing to focus towards progress each month— was forming an executive steering committee at the beginning of the project that included representatives from both CSXT and CN,” Chris Binck, business segment leader, rail, for Bergmann Associates. “Because of Bergmann’s relationships with both railroads, we had regular communications with their public projects group, the bridge group and the operations group from each railroad to make sure that there were no holdups on the project.”

The executive steering committee also had representatives from Michigan DOT, several from MSU and others. The committee met once a month.

“The purpose of the committee was to clearly identify any issues that might hold up the project and try to get decisions made right there so it didn’t have to go back into the organizations, which might further delay issue resolution,” said Binck.

“On the CN structure, there had to be a distinct line between what work was going to be done by CN forces and what by the MDOT contractor,” Hedden noted. “As far as project documents and specs went, we certainly had to have a complete understanding of what responsibilities were for each group. During the meetings, there was a lot of discussion of who was going to do what, even what to do with some of the track material when the shoo fly was removed. MSU had a rail spur for a power plant nearby. They wanted to extend that rail spur, so they took possession of shoo fly track material when the tracks were removed.

“Other topics discussed at these committee meetings were things such as design speeds on the shoo fly, various agreements between the two railroads and MDOT for the preliminary engineering agreement and then between the railroads and MSU for the construction and maintenance agreements because the bridges themselves end up being owned by the university and maintained by MSU,” Hedden said.

“There was a fair amount of discussion surrounding the railroad agreements and who would be responsible for what, both finance-wise and maintenance wise,” Binck pointed out. “There was also an agreement regarding the shoo flies, which were on MSU rights-of-way. to allow the trains to operate temporarily on the MSU ROW until the new structures were built and the trains were put back on original alignment.

“One other critical thing: Because this contract actually was let as two separate contracts—there was an early procurement contract for the bridge fabrication and delivery, as well as for the shoo fly trackbed construction—we had to work closely with both railroads to get early approval for the bridge design from the railroads perspective, so that when we went out for procurement, we knew there would not be changes later from the railroads,” Binck noted.
Day-to-day coordination, plan reviews, design criteria, discussion with the railroads, etc., took place between the design team and railroad departments outside of the steering committee.

“With CSXT, we were also dealing with HDR, one of their consultants that does third party project review,” Binck said. “We coordinated through both CSX and HDR. HDR was not part of the steering committee, but certainly was part of the review.”

“The level of coordination and cooperation we ended up getting from both railroads and the consultant for CSXT was exemplary in order to move this project ahead as quickly as it went through,” Binck said.

Engineering challenges

“The site really presented the most challenges, as well as complying with the wishes of the owner, MSU,” Hedden said. “The north bridge, the CN bridge, was located in a far-from-ideal spot for a rail underpass. Just north of the bridge are two wetlands on either side of Farm Lane, with a really complex groundwater system associated with them. Essentially, we were asked by the owner to lower Farm Lane 25-30 feet below he existing grade. This deep excavation was to be done right next to these wetlands. One of the biggest challenges was trying to keep this new trench dry and keep those wetlands wet during construction and 30 years from now.

“We spent a good amount of effort controlling the groundwater,” Hedden noted. “Cutoff walls were installed on either side of the road. Those cutoff walls had to extend underneath the railroad track and had to be continuous throughout. That was a little bit of a challenge. When we had the shoo flies in place, we had a temporary sheet pile retaining wall designed to allow construction of the new bridge substructures. That retaining wall also had to be watertight to make sure we didn’t have this groundwater system moving through and flooding the excavation. Typically, we’d like to do just a post-and-panel wall there, but we had to do continuous sheet piling with a two-part polyurethane sealer that was injected between the knuckles of the sheet piles to make it water tight.”

Hedden continued: “On the bridge itself, the university wanted an open look and no piers in their roadway. So we ended up with a single span over five lanes of traffic, with bike lanes as well as sidewalk. The structure needed to span 115 feet and carry two tracks. We also wanted to minimize excavation below the roadway because of the wetlands and the water situation. However, we had to get a fairly stout structure in there, so vertical clearance also became a challenge.

“To complicate matters, on the south side, not far from the bridge is a large steam tunnel, part of the university’s extensive network of steam tunnels. We had to get this road elevation back up as quickly as possible to clear the steam tunnel,” Hedden pointed out.

CSXT bridge

“The CSXT structure was more open,” Hedden said. “The site constraint we had to work with there was a 100-year-old woodlot that the university said they didn’t want to touch at all. So we had to work the grading around that area to minimize or eliminate any impact to that woodlot.”

“We were going for economies of scale, trying to make the bridges as similar as we could, but each railroad had its own viewpoint on specific steel details, the deck type, the deck connections to the flooring system and so on,” Binck noted. “We were trying to serve two masters with one bridge, so to speak.

“One thing we ended up incorporating into both bridges was a sacrificial beam arrangement on the outside fascia,” Binck said. “That was a CN requirement. It actually ended up working in favor of the university’s desire to have the bridge be aesthetically pleasing. We were able to use this sacrificial beam to attach the architectural elements, which you don’t normally see on a railroad bridge. Both railroads were concerned about that, not from a maintenance standpoint because the university was going to maintain the bridges, but from operational and safety concerns. So they looked quite closely at the architectural elements on the bridge.”

“The CN bridge had fiber optic cables on both sides “Hedden noted. “Now those lines are actually located on the sacrificial beam and not within the bridge, which CN was very happy about.”

CN began running trains on the new bridge in December 2008. CSXT began operating on its bridge in March 2009.
While the road was opened up to traffic as of late August 2009, there will be items to complete by the end of the year and landscaping work early next year.

“It was very important to MSU to have the roadway open up for home football games,” Hedden said. “At the very south end of this project, a large commuter student parking lot is used as a big staging area for parking for football games. The local bus transit system buses fans from this parking lot to campus up Farm Lane and then on to Spartan Stadium. So the end of August was key for the university.”