Railroad
Bank Stabilization, BNSF Railway
Shirley, Montana
Client: Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway
The Burlington Northern Santa Fe (BNSF) Railway mainline is located adjacent to the Yellowstone River throughout much of its length in eastern Montana. While the rail line has been in virtually the same location for over 100 years, the river is dynamic and moves within the valley corridor. In particular, as the years have progressed, river dynamics near Shirley, Montana caused bank erosion and slope failures that threatened stability of the rail bed. At the Shirley location, the railroad tracks are located on a bluff approximately 50 feet above the river. With near vertical slopes, recent slope failures had brought the edge to within 25 feet in some locations, posing a significant threat to the railroad.
BNSF retained Interstate Engineering to develop a solution to return stability to the river bank. The project scope included acquisition of necessary environmental permits, development of design and contract documents and construction administration services. Receiving notice to proceed late that summer, Interstate immediately went to work acquiring necessary environmental permits. Even though the Corps of Engineers required an individual 404 permit for this project, all environmental permits were secured, designs completed and a contractor selected within 90 days, allowing construction to begin.
Baranko Bros., Inc of Dickinson, North Dakota was responsible for construction, which was complicated by extremely cold weather during the winter months. Massive ice jams raised the level of the river 10-12 feet, flooding the project site on several occasions. The extreme temperatures frequently made the air dump rail cars inoperable and often riprap rock was frozen solid to the insides of the cars and refused to be dumped!
This $1.2 million project involved movement of over 75,000 cubic yards of earth and placement of over 30,000 cubic yards of very large riprap. The project resulted in a 2000 foot long riprap protected embankment with slopes no steeper than 2:1. Unique to this solution was incorporation of a 12-foot wide terrace set 1-2 feet below ordinary high water that was seeded, mulched and planted with willow in 25 clump planting sites containing a total of 100 live willow stakes and 150 bare root willows of both sandbar willow and yellow willow variety. The terrace and $19,000 revegetation plan was required as condition of 404 permit approval and is the first of its type to be implemented along the Yellowstone River.
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