This week’s update is all about bridge steel, which has started trickling into the contractor’s offsite staging yard located in the state’s gravel pit near McKinley Village. While we’ve seen plenty of photos of this steel during the trial assembly at the fabricator’s yard in Oregon, we now get to gaze upon it in our own backyard. The steel arrives, having completed the journey from Oregon to Anchorage via sea, then from Anchorage to Fairbanks on the Alaska Railroad, and finally from Fairbanks to McKinley Village via truck.
Steel pieces laid out in the staging area to be inspected and organized after their long journey. Photo courtesy of Jim Lebel
As shipments arrive, each piece is inspected, sorted, and organized into piles based on location within the bridge and order of assembly. Speaking of assembly, the contractor’s current schedule shows them starting assembly of the truss atop the launch platform at the project site later this month.