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White River Freight Railroad Bridge

This rail project, which was completed by The Indiana Rail Road Company (INRD) in August 2015, replaced a 115-year-old open-deck steel-through-truss design freight railroad bridge across the White River in Greene County.

Because of its condition, the old bridge had weight and speed restrictions in place and would have been closed to all rail traffic in less than 10 years. The closure of this bridge would have forced the use of less efficient and more costly alternative transportation modes and routings. Shippers that would have been impacted by the closure include the rail-dependent Naval Support Activity (NSA) Crane Department of Defense munitions depot, mines, utilities, and agricultural producers.

Construction of the new 1,271-foot long replacement bridge began in July 2014. In May 2015, in less than a week, crews pulled up track, removed the old bridge spans and superstructure, re-graded the bridge approaches, lifted and set into place and leveled the three new spans, and replaced 1,400 feet of the track on the north approach and 750 feet of track on the south approach.

Design and construction of the new bridge cost $13.8 million, which was funded by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), INRD, and INDOT. The FRA provided a TIGER Discretionary Grant in the amount of $8.25 million. INDOT was the grantee of the TIGER Grant and was responsible for performing project management and oversight roles including financial expenditures, while providing project reporting to the FRA.

The new bridge enables trains to travel 40 mph and can support and provide clearance for today’s standard 286,000 pound, fully loaded railcars. Most importantly, it will allow railroad shippers to maximize their capacity and provide lower shipping costs. The bridge is designed to last at least 100 years.

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