Newly placed girders define eventual width of new Cimarron/I-25 bridge
With large, portable light towers providing illumination and dozens of Kraemer North America workers on hand, two telescoping cranes combined to lift girders up to 154 feet long into their permanent positions. By July, based on the Kraemer schedule, the girders will have been concreted in and readied to handle thousands of cars a day. The effect, according to previously provided project information, will be to roughly double the width of the new interstate bridge to its final width of just over 150 feet. The first half - an 80-foot-wide segment that's temporarily being used by both directions of traffic - was completed in October just west of the new part of the span. It required 30 girders, which were lifted into place last July. The April 5-6 girder work occurred between about 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. both nights, requiring the full closure of Cimarron Street/Highway 24 under the bridge and the reduction of I-25 northbound from three lanes to one. One of the cranes sat on the interstate and the other below (on Cimarron). Transported from Denver, each girder was delivered to the site by a semi-tractor/trailer. One girder at a time, workers would attach an apparatus with heavy-duty nylon slings, one at either end. Then the cranes - with the operators communicating by radio - would lift the girder in tandem. According to Don Garcia, deputy project manager with CDOT consultant Wilson & Company, the 18 girders varied from 75 to 154 feet long and weighed 45 to 90 tons. Each was custom-made. The size difference was due to I-25 going over Cimarron at an angle, Garcia explained. The $113 million Cimarron/I-25 project as a whole is due for completion by the end of this year.
Westside Pioneer article
Would you like to respond to this article? The Westside Pioneer welcomes letters at editor@westsidepioneer.com. (Click here for letter-writing criteria.) |
In the air and on its way to being set is the 14th
of 18 girders that were placed for the new I-25 bridge over Cimarron
Street/Highway 24 the nights of April 5 and 6. This particular girder was set at
about 12:30 a.m. on April 7. (Note: All the photos on this page were shot between
about 11:30 p.m. April 6 and 12:45 a.m. April 7.)
Aided by the man below, a Kraemer North
America worker attaches a sling to the top of a girder, one of two which will
allow it to be lifted into place by the cranes.
A nighttime view from the first half of the
new bridge (opened in October) looks across the recently placed girders for the
second half, just to the east. The slings from the two cranes that put it there are
still attached. In the background at far right is one of the
semi-tractors that hauled a girder to the project site. The vehicle is parked in a
northbound traffic lane, which was closed for the occasion. In the background at
left is the city's Drake power plant.
As a worker watches from below, a
semi-tractor/trailer hauling a girder - which is well over 100 feet in length - pulls
into position on the bridge over Cimarron Street. Cranes would later lift the girder
from the trailer and into its assigned place.
LEFT: Kraemer North America workers are
seen in the temporary catacomb of new girders. RIGHT: A worker assigned to a
pier on which one end of the girder will rest uses hand signals to help the crane
operators make slight directional adjustments to maneuver the unit into the right
spot.
With Cimarron Street closed except for the
northbound off-ramp (left) and southbound on-ramp (right), this was the eerie
view looking east toward the interchange at about 11:30 p.m. April 6. Adding to
the effect are the the two telescoping cranes rising into the night sky.