Roadguy got to pay a visit to the 35W bridge site on Monday, and there was a fair amount happening, so let’s have a look. (Click on photos to enlarge.)

First, even though I was an invited guest, it was a little odd to be standing on the freeway:

(I was in the southbound lanes. That’s Washington Avenue passing over the highway, with Bobby and Steve’s Auto World at the upper left.)

The major construction excitement on Monday was the Pouring of the First Footing, which will hold up the abutment on the south end:

The cement was delivered by the light blue trucks, then pumped through a hose attached to the light blue crane, which moved like a swing-arm desk lamp. This allowed workers to aim the hose where they needed to. (A photo by a real Strib photographer is here.) The dark blue boxes on either end are diesel heaters, which blow warm air over the concrete as it cures. To keep the heat in, there was black plastic atop the 200-foot-long trench.

Just off to the right, in a private parking lot, was this guy shoveling off a roof:

The building was the emergency operations center from the bridge collapse. It’s actually a triple-wide trailer that the city brought in Aug. 10. Workers were doing various things to it to prepare to haul it away. I’m not sure how long it’s been unused or unheated, but on the ground outside, I saw some giant ice cubes in the shape of water-cooler bottles.

Other buildings in the area are also doomed:

These structures have been purchased by MnDOT and will be torn down, possibly to make room for a retaining pond. (Note that the billboards have already been removed, unlike certain others.)

Just south of Washington, 35W looks like a scene from Menards — stacks of building materials on one side, a bunch of workers’ trucks angle-parked on the other:

The wood is being used to build casting beds:

No, a casting bed is not like a casting couch — it’s basically a big mold that the concrete will be poured into to make segments of the main span over the river. At left is a University of Minnesota office building, where a worker in one of the windows waved to Roadguy’s tour guide — those folks have a nice view of the casting yard and perhaps have almost recovered from the pile driving.

Overall, it was a nice day to be checking things out, but Roadguy is really glad that construction of the bridge is only supposed to last for one winter — it’s impossible to take notes or push the button on CrapCam with any sort of glove on, and his tour guide wouldn’t let him warm up his hand in the diesel heater.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 18th, 2007 at 6:05 am and is filed under Main, Scenes and stories. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.