BNSF planning repairs to Pend Oreille railroad bridge

Gear, materials being staged at Dog Beach

SANDPOINT - BNSF Railway is lining up equipment and materials at Dog Beach for a project to replace aging piers and pilings on its bridge across Lake Pend Oreille.

The replacement project is expected to last from April 1 to Oct. 1, according to Gus Melonas, BNSF's spokesman for the Northwest region.

“Much of the work will be done from barges,” he said.

The railroad is replacing a dozen support piers at the north end of the locomotive bridge, which is on the east side of the U.S. Highway 95 Long Bridge. The railroad bridge's piers and wooden pilings were installed more than a century ago, according to an encroachment permit the railroad was seeking from the Idaho Transportation Department.

The bridge work will be timed to keep trains rolling across the span. “We'll plan train movements with work activity each day,” said Melonas.

The BNSF bridge is a cardinal east/west link for northern transcontinental freight lines and Amtrak. The bridge handles an estimated half-million gross tons of cargo shuttling to and from sea ports on the West Coast, the ITD permit request indicates.

The permit was needed in order to extract a couple sections of guardrail next to the northbound lane of the highway. But the request was dropped because the BNSF's construction access was addressed through a right-of-way agreement the railroad negotiated with the state, said Barbara Babic, ITD's Panhandle spokeswoman.

The right-of-way agreement was obtained by ITD so it can construct the Sandpoint bypass. The state paid $6.4 million for approximately 40 acres of railroad right of way, according to Idaho Transportation Board records.

The marshaling of equipment and materials at Dog Beach is being questioned as preparations for the Sand Creek Byway.

“That project has absolutely nothing to do with the byway in any way,” Babic said, referring to the BNSF repairs.

The U.S. 95 re-routing project is anticipated to go out to bid soon, although opponents of the bypass are expected to file a preliminary injunction to keep the project from advancing while they sue the Federal Highway Administration and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over permit approval of the bypass.