Emergency vehicles can use CSXT bridge during project

Written by jrood

The raising of a railroad bridge on Route 148 won't prevent emergency vehicles or school buses from crossing, but the road will be cut to one lane during the project and will close to all but buses and emergency vehicles for about a week, state officials said last night, the Worcester, Mass., Telegram & Gazette reports.

That news alleviated some
of residents’ concerns that emergency vehicles and school buses would be
essentially cut off from a majority of the town’s population on the south side
of the tracks. But it still left one business owner wondering how customers
would find their way to her restaurant, given the lengthy detour that’s
planned.

CSX Transportation is
raising several bridges and lowering some tracks along the rail line, including
in West Brookfield and Spencer, so "double-stacked" containers can be carried
on the rails. The effect will be a reduction in truck traffic, officials said.

During construction, the
process of crossing the bridge could slow response times in an emergency.
Construction workers will be warned by radio of approaching ambulances or fire
apparatus and the bridge will have to be lowered about an inch and a half so
those vehicles can cross. That procedure will take between four and five
minutes, John P. Fallon, design build project manager, said.

Paul F. Harrington, vice
president of the Structural Division of Fay, Spofford & Thorndike of Burlington,
said the bridge would be raised and shimmed in small increments so the worst-case
scenario would be the 1.5-inch lowering in an emergency. During the "jacking"
crews will work 24 hours per day until the process is completed.

But the jacking process,
which will start on a weekend and last about a week, has Nancy Salem of Salem
Cross Inn concerned. The detour, which takes drivers 10 miles over some back
roads, could mean her customers, some who come from the eastern part of the state,
might have trouble finding the restaurant on Route 9.

"How do I get my customers
to come?" she asked, adding that she might like to add signs for the inn near
the detour signs. That, she was told, would be up to the towns involved.

Residents on Lower River
Road were worried about added expenses to the town when the lower end of that
street is closed. Because it is so difficult to drive up the hill in winter,
James Milner, who lives there, said the town would have to do extra work
plowing and treating the road so residents can get out.

David Holdcraft wondered
why the state hadn’t looked into a ground-level crossing that would move
traffic off the bridge. He was told CSXT frowns on bringing in the temporary
signals, and getting such a crossing could take a few years.

The bridge, over which an
average of 6,000 vehicles pass each day, will be closed to through traffic for
between five and seven days, most likely in early December. It will be limited
to one lane using temporary traffic signals during the rest of the project.
Work is set to begin Nov. 1 and officials hope it will be completed next
summer.

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