Light rail's Lynnwood Link inches forward, with massive beams
SEATTLE — They weigh between 150,000 to 175,000 pounds and run 140 to 150 feet long.
If you’ve driven between Lynnwood and Seattle via I-5 in the past year, you’ve probably seen them, but they only move at night.
They’re the big, gray girders that connect the newly constructed columns lining the interstate. Placing them requires two cranes and a crew of 10 to 12. As crane operators hoist the beams into the sky, workers line up exactly where they need to land on the capped columns.
“They actually set up a laser to say, ‘Here’s where the girder goes,’” said Ginger Ferguson, a Sound Transit construction manager. “I can’t believe they get them on there.”
The beams, made of concrete and rebar, come from Tacoma and are so large that some can’t travel through the tunnel under the Seattle Convention Center, so they take I-405. And they must arrive facing the correct direction, because they’re too heavy to flip.
All of this happens under the cover of darkness to give the transport trucks and construction crews the space they need, Ferguson said.
By 2024, tens of thousands of people will ride above the girders each day when the Lynnwood Link of Sound Transit’s light rail system is finished. A trip from Lynnwood to Seattle will take 27 minutes, regardless of I-5’s traffic.
https://www.heraldnet.com/news/light-rails-lynnwood-link-inches-forward-with-massive-beams/