Friday, August 3, 2012

Florida East Coast Railway adds spur for airport project

Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport is creating a six-story high, widened runway extension, and the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) has added a rail spur to expedite the transport of materials to the jobsite.

The FEC will operate trains to and from the Broward County construction site daily, moving more than 15,000 tons a day of aggregate to extend the elevated runway above U.S. Highway 1 and the FEC track.

FEC rail cars are loaded at the Medley quarries in the Miami area and travel to the Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood airport. At the jobsite, the heavy material is loaded onto trucks owned by the general contractor, Odebrecht Central JV.

This transport process of construction material purposely avoids public streets and highways. In fact, a rail spur was recently added just to handle material at the job site. The FEC and contractors Gulfstream Engineering and Gonzales and Sons laid 8,000 feet of track with more than 3,000 steel ties in less than three weeks, completing the new connection to the FEC mainline on July 23. Lime and stone ballast was used, with 136 pound welded rail.

 According to Jim Hertwi, FEC president and CEO, "Three point five million tons of rock equates to over 375,000 truck loads and empties running back and forth on area highways between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. We invested in the track and the unit train operation in order to do our part to address congestion and reduce emissions during the airport runway construction."

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