Patented BTI Underpass Method
Every ninety
minutes there is a vehicle/train accident at a railroad crossing somewhere in
the United States.Crossings are a
safety, operations, and maintenance headache for railroads and local
governments.Tremendous momentum is
building to eliminate as many crossings as possible.
Here in the Chicago area, there are plans being developed to
separate the railroad from the roadway with bridges at 26 railroad
crossings.Railroad companies, seeking
to shut down a third or even more of these crossings, have begun to spend large
sums to help municipalities build overpasses or underpasses type of construction can be
exorbitantly expensive, however: projects vary in cost from $10 to $40 million,
not including rail downtime.
Part of
the reason this construction is so expensive is that, with conventional
methods, temporary bypass railroad tracks must be created before construction
may commence.After the construction is
completed, the temporary tracks are torn up.The planning for these bypass tracks includes condemnation and
acquisition of real estate. Of course,
depending on the location, the real estate issues alone can cost in the millions
of dollars and cause substantial problems and delays in planning.
We
have developed a
better way. Our new method
allows the existing rail tracks to be used during the entire duration of
construction of the underpass, thus eliminating the need for temporary bypass
tracks.
We
have been granted a U.S. Patent on its highly innovative system. The BTI Underpass Method incorporates the following six-step process:
- Columns are driven or drilled
into the ground outside each of the four corners where the railroad tracks
intersect with the road;
- Tunnels are
constructed under the railroad track at the location of each foundation;
- The columns are
connected by pier cap beams through the tunnels;
- During a brief
interruption to rail traffic, material between foundations is excavated
to make room for bridge girders;
- Girders are installed
to provide support to the railroad tracks, and rail traffic is resumed;
- The underpass is then
excavated under the new bridge for the new road to be constructed.
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We have
completed our first contract to implement a hybrid
version of the BTI Underpass Method. The project is in Indianapolis, IN. An existing underpass
was lengthened to allow the road underneath to
be widened. Now that the efficiency and
savings of this method are demonstrated by this first project, it is expected
that there will be strong acceptance of the BTI Underpass Method. We are
currently pursuing approximately thirty other similar projects.
*We have also developed a similar system for
Overpasses.