Posted on 08/04/2020 11:25:04 AM PDT by CedarDave
TEMPE, AZ (3TV/CBS 5) -- A portion of the bridge located near Tempe Town Lake was demolished Sunday morning around 8:13 a.m. as part of the clean-up process following a train derailment and fire earlier this week that damaged the bridge.
“The operation was done without any injuries and an all clear had been given for the site for utilities to make sure there were no disruption of services. We've had a tremendous amount of progress over the last 24 hours that we're very happy with," said Tempe Fire's Assistant Chief, Andrea Glass. Tempe Town Lake bridge demolition scheduled for Sunday Tempe Town Lake bridge demolition scheduled for Sunday
Damaged portion of Tempe Town Lake bridge to be demolished Sunday.
The bridge was heavily damaged last Wednesday after a Union Pacific Railroad train derailed and caught a fire. The flames sent smoke skyward that was seen across the east Valley.
It's not clear what caused Wednesday's derailment and subsequent bridge collapse and fire, but according to Union Pacific's website, the bridges are visually inspected every 30 days.
Just two days before that inspection -- the evening of July 7 -- the City of Tempe tweeted about a two-day road closure for "emergency railroad work." We don't know yet what that work entailed. Tempe officials say it doesn't manage or inspect the train track since it's owned and operate by Union Pacific.
"Now that the bridge section is down, our clearing operations will begin. You'll see a lot of heavy equipment. We will likely cut the bridge section into smaller pieces so that we can truck it from the site today. Our goal is to get that area cleared so we can prep for bridge construction," said Union Pacific spokesperson, Clint Schelbitzki.
(Excerpt) Read more at azfamily.com ...
That portion of the UP line is used mostly to transfer cars to BNSF's Peavine Division at BNSF's huge yard that runs along US 60 (Grand Ave.). The UP line continues to the west as far as Buckeye to serve a few customers.
From Buckeye to Wellton, the UP line was taken out of service in 1996 when Amtrak's Sunset Limited was blown off the tracks by a terrorist.
Phoenix-bound freight on UP's Sunset Line is sorted in Tucson and back-fed to Phoenix.
On the Outdoor Channel or whatever it is, there's a Brit show on acquiring and cooking wild game. A couple of weeks ago, the chef visited a farmer friend that was about to thin the flock of pigeons raiding his land. Shotguns were involved, along with a motorized pigeon decoy device.
That seems a lot easier and more rewarding than looking for bridges that need to come down that just happen to be the habitat of pigeons.
When I saw the headline my reaction was ‘Oh no!’. I thought it was the Mill Ave bridge which I have crossed so many times.
I think it was the old bridge with concrete decorative pillars. It was effectively a pedestrian bridge from sometime in seventies as I remember. A real work of engineering a nd beauty in 1912. My parents used it in the Thirties and bunch of cousins and me in Seventies and grandkids in 2000s. Lol. Plus gfather and brother had ferry at end of Mill in circa 1900. Sort of fun to remember here. One of my grandsons was in line registering and stared right at picture of his great grandfather on wall where he was waiting in line. Good experience for kid.
I imagine that an adult pigeon is pretty tough, but I’ve eaten squab which are quite delicious.
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