PORT OF MIAMI BASCULE BRIDGE REHAB. - ANALYSIS & RFP DEVELOPMENT

The Florida East Coast (FEC) Railway in conjunction with the Port of Miami (POM) desired to enter into a design-build contract to provide design and construction services for the Port of Miami Bascule Railroad Bridge Rehabilitation project. 

The railroad bridge is 2,300 foot long with a single leaf bascule span that was built in 1964, but has been out of service (in the open position) since 2004.  In addition to rehabilitation to the original design capacity, the Port wanted to consider strengthening it from it’s original capacity of Cooper E60 loading to a Cooper E80 loading.

RS&H acted as the Owner’s Representative on this project by assisting in the development of a Request for Design-Build Services document, performing initial inspections and structural assessment, preparing a set of concept plans and performing cost estimates.

Personal responsibilities included assessing the increase in loads to the substructure, if the design live load were increased from the original E60 to the propose E80 loads.  The 2010 Manual for Railway engineering published by the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association was used as a guide in performing the necessary calculations.  Mathcad and STAAD programs were used to run the analysis.