TERRE HAUTE —
A $1.1 million road project to improve about 5,000 feet of Wabash Avenue is moving faster than anticipated, largely because steel railroad tracks, expected to have been left behind from a former interurban passenger line, are gone.
In April and July 2011, ground penetrating radar surveys were conducted on Wabash Avenue to locate potential rails in the roadbed between 13th Street and 23rd Street. Two pairs of anomalies, or differences in density of the soil, were recorded, indicating a probable intact subsurface rail system.
Testing was extended to 24th Street, but no anomalies were found.
The anomalies indicate a hard surface, unlike the soil around it.
Turns out, the rails had been replaced with granite, a very hard stone, which is what the ground penetrating radar was reflecting.
“Why would you stick pieces of granite in the slot where the tracks used to go? That was a surprise to us. We took the rails for granite,” joked City Engineer Chuck Ennis. He said he assumed the stone was a steel track.
Metal detectors did find metal, but after digging, it turned out to be metal angle brackets. The brackets held wooden blocks, instead of longer wooden ties, in which spikes were driven to hold down the rail track. The construction was unlike any usually found for a railroad, Ennis said.
“A lot of the interurban rail lines were shoestring operations, pieced together. They were looking for ways to cut corners to make money,” Ennis said.
The city, Ennis said, had hoped to gain some salvage income from the rails. However, the flip side is the project is moving much faster. “In two weeks, it is already at 19th Street,” Ennis said.
“We were going to have to replace the road anyway, because it was the rail bed that was failing and the rotting blocks of wood, which still caused a wash-board effect” on the road’s surface, Ennis said.
The project has had one other unexpected hurdle — more rock fill required for the road base.
“We took core samples of the pavement in several sections” prior to the start of the project, Ennis said. “The bottom of the excavation is not very consistent, so there were some real low spots where we had to dig out more than anticipated. We are using more fill material than what we had originally anticipated.”
Most of Wabash Avenue’s base was replaced or improved by the state when former U.S. 40 was converted from a two-lane road and widened to a four-lane road more than a half century ago, Ennis said. The road’s base has since been improved at other areas, largely for improved intersections such as at 25th Street.
Ennis said his father, Bill, a former Terre Haute city councilman, also told him about the city removing railroad tracks from Wabash Avenue from Third Street to Seventh Street in the late 1960s. Former Mayor Leland Larrison actually had a chunk of rail on his desk for a short time, Ennis said.
Reporter Howard Greninger can be reached at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com.
Local & Bistate
Related Photos
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Moving along: A bulldozer sits on the new roadbed of Wabash Avenue near 17th Street on Wednesday morning. (Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis)
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Tribune-Star/Jim Avelis Through the years: A drop of about a foot shows the previous pavings of Wabash Avenue at 14th street. The compacted white rock forms the new roadbed to the right.
Discussion
Wabash Cannonball: Project to repair central artery through city moving quickly
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