Hinckley Drive: All girded-up
April 20, 2010
UDOT extended Hinckley Drive (S.R. 79) west from 1900 West (S.R. 126) to Midland Drive (S.R. 108) to provide a direct connection to I-15 for southwest Weber County, Utah residents. The project comprises a bridge that extends more that 300 feet across the Union Pacific Railroad and UTA FrontRunner tracks.
During a girder placement, Dave Asay of Frontline Public Involvement was on-hand to see the operation. Please enjoy the following narrative and images from Dave:
The largest steel girders ever placed on a Utah non-freeway project up to this point, began the arduous task of moving to their final resting place the third weekend in April 2010.
In carefully orchestrated movements, the beams were first lifted by two giant cranes on the east side of the new structure on the new Hinckley Drive extension and extended over the UPRR and UTA railroad tracks. A third crane then gracefully attached to the end of the protruding beam while the largest crane was repositioned to the east end of the large girder. Adding to the complexity of the operation was the necessity to add and remove huge counter-weights from the various cranes for each movement.
Finally a fourth and fifth crane latch onto the beam and in careful tandem the 301’ x 13’ girder was gently placed on the large steel and rubber pads it will call home for many decades to come.
