Posted on 01/10/2016 6:53:47 PM PST by Hieronymus
A newly constructed bridge in northern Ontario has heaved apart, indefinitely closing the Trans-Canada highway — the only road connecting Eastern and Western Canada.
The Nipigon River Bridge has been closed for "an indefinite time due to mechanical issues," according to the Ontario Provincial Police. The bridge remains open to pedestrian traffic.
The west side of the bridge has pulled away from the abutment connecting it to the river bank's edge, lifting up about 60 centimetres.
As a result, police have shut down Highways 11 and 17 at the bridge, which is located about 100 kilometres northeast of Thunder Bay, Ont.
The estimated duration of the closure is "uncertain" with police noting it could be "possibly days."
"It's not just us. It's all of Canada that has a problem right now," Nipigon Mayor Richard Harvey told CBC News. "This is the one place in Canada where there is only one road, one bridge across the country." ======================================== Harvey added that police quickly started to stop people heading out on the Trans-Canada Highway at larger Ontario centres like Sault Ste. Marie, Thunder Bay and Terrace Bay, telling them to turn back or use an alternate route through the U.S.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbc.ca ...
Of interest.
Ontario also has a higher level debt than many countries. That may have been a factor somehow.
“A bad place to try new technology.”
That’s an UNDERSTATEMENT, considering where Thunder Bay is. You just can’t ‘dip into the states’ to get around that, and it says there is no backup. They’re toast until they can get something temporary set up.
I wouldn’t be surprised if they ask the US Army Corps of Engineers to help them.
Back in the DubyaDubya 2, combat engineers would build bridges under fire...
""As we turned [onto the highway], we saw the whole bridge — a kind of big gust of wind came underneath it and blew it up and then it came back down," she said, adding it shifted by about half a metre."
Isn't the river frozen over yet?
GMTA
A bridge of Rearden Metal
Dagny and Henry traveled separately to Colorado to survey the Rio Norte Line and its progress. There Henry told Dagny that she was wasting money by ordering new support members of Rearden Metal to prop up a tottering steel bridge. Why not build a new bridge, entirely of Rearden Metal? He then showed her his first rough sketch of such a bridge, based on the new type of truss that he had invented years before. He showed her that such a bridge would actually be less expensive than extra struts for the old bridge.
If the level of FUD had been high when Dagny was merely proposing to lay rail of Rearden Metal, it now rose to a fever pitch with the news that she would build an entire bridge of the new metal. In fact, the State Science Institute issued a report essentially damning the Metal with faint praise, as an “unproved” technology. Henry dismissed the report, which seemed to him to have been written by men who had not even tried to work with the Metal. But the board of directors of the Taggart Transcontinental Railroad took it seriously. So did James Taggart, who fled New York City.
When the situation became untenable, Dagny then proposed to organize her own firm, buy the right-of-way from Taggart Transcontinental, and build the line herself. She called the line the John Galt line, after the mysterious name “John Galt” that everyone was asking about in a common slang phrase. She found several enthusiastic investors, including Ellis Wyatt and Lawrence Hammond, who had decided to relocate to Colorado and looked forward to the completion of the line. Henry Rearden, despite Dagny’s protests, also decided to invest in John Galt, Incorporated.
I read a journal written by a combat engineer who built bridges usually under fire by the Germans. I wish I could tell you the name but my memory is now pretty much a joke. I will check out Amazon and see if I can search it out.
Hey are you Canadians using Chinese steel and concrete, like we are now in the U.S.A.? How’s that working out for you?
Just fly up Michael Moore, Rosie, Ophra, and one or two others to sit their butts on the high part until the spring thaw comes.
That old bridge to the right was doing just fine but the mayors of Oakland and San Francisco, et al. had to have a billion dollar pretty bridge -- the problem now is to fix the $13-billion (includes interest on the loans) bridge before the next major earthquake.
The old bridge survived the one in 1989.
David Pegrin.
Doesn’t appear to be any significant steel or concrete failure to me. More a dynamic engineering deficiency.
Have they tried duct tape?
Janice Holt Giles also wrote a GREAT book about her husband’s unit, the 291st Engineer Battalion - “The Damned Engineers”.
Obviously due to global warming and too many guns in the US. Turn in your guns and send Al Gore money.
Seems like they should have a “backup.”
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