Traylor Pacific enters West Coast heavy civil & marine market.

The latest addition to the Traylor organization is a Heavy Civil & Marine Division, operating out of Newport Beach, California, under the name Traylor Pacific. The Division office, located at 1200 Quail Street, opened for business on November 18, 1996. The core group of four employees left their successful careers at a prominent West Coast company to take on the challenge of a start-up operation. This is certainly a compliment to the Traylor organization and its progressive outlook in the market place. The primary focus of Traylor Pacific will be to tap the vast California market with the surge of activity associated with seismic retrofit work. This Division will also be able to capitalize on attractive opportunities in other Western States. The experience base of the Traylor Pacific staff is ideally suited for upcoming projects. Traylor Pacific is managed by Vice President Jim Dastur, with a broad experience base of 30 years, predominantly with the Riedel organization in Portland, Oregon. Heading up the estimating for the Division is Dave Bingham, an accomplished construction engineer with 22 years experience with Riedel, Dillingham Construction and Fletcher General Construction. John Meagher (pronounced Maaher) will be in charge of operations as soon as we procure work. John is a veteran of 18 years experience having managed large projects for Riedel and Fletcher General. And the most important member of this team, the one who facilitates us in working at top level of productivity, is Theresa Dominguez. Theresa is a super-efficient Office Manager and an accomplished accountant with extensive construction industry experience. Traylor Pacific kicks off with high expectations and guarded optimism to continue the tradition of excellence nurtured by Traylor Bros. over the past 50 years.

Mesa Precast Yard

Located in northeast Houston, Texas, and central to all of Traylor Bros.ā construction in Houston and the surrounding areas, Traylor Bros.ās Mesa Precast facility was originally constructed to provide the major prestressed concrete products to the US-59 and I-10 project which was awarded following our successful bid in July of 1994. Under the wing of this project, Traylor Bros. began construction of the facility, beginning in December of 1994, by developing about 40 of the facilityās total 100 acres. By mid-April of 1995, the first 860 feet of piling and 2,200 sf of deck panel were removed from the forms, marking the commencement of production by the fledgling plant.

At the end of June 1995, the first set of trapezoidal box beams was placed in the casting beds and the plant was finally in full production. After a short learning curve on the new product, the plant was soon producing at least one line of all products every day. We were well on our way to completing the US-59 project requirements of 85,565 ft of trapezoidal girders, 100,000 ft of 16" square prestressed piling, and 406,000 sf of prestressed deck panel. In addition, the plant was now being utilized by yet another Traylor Bros. project. The Baytown Loop 201 project added another 279,000 sf of prestressed deck panels to the plantās backlog. The original product capabilities of the plant included one 435' and two 385' long casting beds for prestressed beams, two 320' long, 8' wide prestressed deck panel beds, and one 440' long, 16" square piling bed. While the beam beds were originally set up to cast US-59ās 54" trapezoidal box beams, the beds were designed for future expansion. Each independent line is capable of withstanding over 4 million pounds of prestress force. In late 1995, the Mesa Precast Yard broke into the market as a competitive manufacturer of prestressed products by selling 10,000 ft of piling to Gifford-Hill & Co. Later in February 1996, the Mesa Precast facility was awarded its first competitively bid project by J. D. Abrahms, Inc. The project consisted of 19,000 ft of 16" piling and 6,000 ft of 18" piling. In July of 1996, after a few unsuccessful bidding attempts by Traylor Bros. with precast pricing from the Mesa Yard, we landed the Pierce Elevated project...a true test of the capabilities of not only Traylor Bros. construction prowess, but of the Precast Yard as well. The Precast Yardās management team, stepping up to the plate early and prior to the bid, devised a plan that would allow the aggressive production rate of over 45,000 of the projectās total of 84,400 ft of Type C girders in as little as three months, allowing all of the Phase I beams to be ready and waiting prior to the projectās specified shutdown date. This was achieved by converting two of the current trapezoidal girder lines into four Type C girder lines which allowed 770 ft of production capability everyday. Like the Pierce Elevated project itself, this aggressive schedule required nearly flawless execution. The order for the new Type C beam forms was issued the same day as the opening of the bids. Within six weeks of the bid opening, the beam lines had been converted and were in full production. Three weeks earlier, prior to actual award of the project, production began on Pierce Elevatedās 522,000 sf of prestressed deck panels. As of the end of November 1996, all Phase I products for Pierce Elevated were complete and ready for shipment. Phase II deck panels are about 25% complete and a few Phase II girders have been poured. Piling and deck panel production for the US-59 project is 100% complete and trapezoidal girder production continues with only 5% of the project requirement remaining. We are now turning our attention to the next project and are aggressively searching for more work. Achievement of our goals for the US-59 project, and especially the Pierce Elevated project, has made a lasting impression on the area contractors as well as the area precast competition. The centralized location of the Mesa Precast Yard in the City of Houston gives us a distinct advantage over our closest precast competitor and gives Traylor Bros. an unparalleled advantage in the Houston construction market. With these advantages, Traylor Bros. and its Mesa Precast Yard will be a force with which to be reckoned for years to come.

THREE NEW JOBS!

1.Traylor Bros. LOW BIDDER ON CABLE-STAYED BRIDGE OVER OHIO

2.Patton Island Superstructure-NEW!

Traylor Bros. has received official Notice of Award, from the Alabama Department of Transportation, for a portion of the superstructure on the Patton Island Bridge over the Tennessee River in Florence, Alabama. The project consists of a pair of 3-lane bridges 1,820 lf, with a concrete deck to be placed on 247 BT-72 girders, covering thirteen 140 lf spans. Notice to Proceed is expected by newsletter press time.

3.Houstonās Pierce Elevated Freeway - Phase I finished 6 days early for early completion bonus - Congrats to all the crew!!

Traylor Bros. was low bidder for the reconstruction of the Pierce Elevated Freeway (I-45) in Houston, Texas, on July 9, 1996, at $26,122,514. Our success on this A+B (cost + time) bid was largely due to the aggressive approach taken on contract time. Traylor Bros. was the only bidder to bid the minimum allowable days for total contract time (311) and for the two phased shutdowns of I-45 (95 days). Each 95-day shutdown has a liquidated damage/incentive provision of $53,000 per day. These are the largest ever in the state of Texas. We received Notice to Proceed on October 5, 1996. Phase I shutdown (D-Day) is scheduled for December 5. During Phase I, we will demolish the superstructure on 1.6 miles of the northbound bridge (386,500 sf), including the removal of 58 concrete caps and 13 steel caps. The existing columns and foundations will remain. We will then install new precast concrete and steel caps, precast and steel beams, precast deck panels, and a 4" poured-in-place deck, and reopened to traffic on Day 96! This process will then be repeated on the southbound bridge during Phase II. All precast products for Pierce Elevated are being produced in Traylor Bros.ās Mesa Yard. . Precasting began in mid-August. All components for the northbound bridge will be cast prior to the December 5th shutdown date. Because the northbound and southbound bridges share a common substructure, extensive temporary shoring is required to allow demolition of the northbound bridge while maintaining traffic southbound. This work was completed in November, along with detour paving and traffic control work.

Special thanks to the Traylor Bros. crews on the US-59 Project for their assistance in the start-up of the Pierce Elevated project. Editor's Note: All work is on or ahead of schedule; the first deck pour was made on December 14, 1996.

Buckman Bridge nears Completion

On Saturday, November 23, 1996, the last of over 82,000 cy of concrete will be placed on the 1.16 million sf of concrete deck. This will complete the bridge work. The work has taken 1,315 calendar days to complete. The work remaining by subcontractors is: removal of the detours, grading, paving, miscellaneous roadwork, and final striping. Work on the project will be completed in early February 1997, nearly four years after the notice to proceed by the Florida Department of Transportation. Current plans are to have all four lanes on the bridges and approach roads in service by Christmas 1996. This will give the bridges to Florida citizens over four months prior to the original contract completion date. The widening job on the Buckman bridges has been a difficult one at times, arduous at other times, and now is just plain long! It seems most everyone in Traylor Bros. thought that the job was done several months ago; however, the daily rush hour traffic jams are still happening every day and likely will continue until the bridges are completely open to traffic. The contract has grown due to changes made, now $79 million. The project is successful and the partnering pact with FDOT has worked very well.

U.S. to Canada Bridge Erection Complete

A new link to Canada drew closer to reality on November 4, 1996, when Traylor Bros. erected the first of two tie chords and joined the United States and Canada portions of the Second Blue Water Bridge. The bridge spans the St. Clair River just south of Lake Huron linking Port Huron, Michigan, with Sarnia, Ontario, and upon completion, will carry I-94 east bound traffic to Canada. The closure piece was erected two days prior to the Canadian's erection of the corresponding piece along the south girder line. The erection of the tie chord marked the end of a race which began for Traylor Bros. on April 1, 1996. This is significant in that the Canadian steel subcontractor had an eleven week head start! After the closure pieces had been erected, efforts were focused on "swinging the bridge." This was accomplished by gradually releasing the loads in the tie-back through two 1,000-ton capacity scissor jacks and allowed the bridge to become self-supporting. The tie-back had supported the bridge during the construction of the arch. This critical step was completed on November 22, 1996. The remaining structural steel members have been erected and efforts are being directed at the dismantling and demobilizing of falsework and cranes. Although the steel superstructure is complete, vehicular traffic ill not flow across the bridge until July 1997, after the completion of the bridge deck.

L.A. Metro Seismic Section Work Begins see L.A. MTA site!

Work began in November on the 'Seismic Section', an enlarged egg-shaped section of tunnel designed to accommodate movement of the Hollywood fault. This section of tunnel is at the south end of the project and construction is taking place through the La Brea shafts. After drilling an exploratory borehole into the seismic section, the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) changed the method of excavation of the 300' of tunnel to conventional mining because the borehole indicated that this section of tunnel was not hard rock as expected. The top heading/bench excavation is estimated to take 8 months and cost an additional 4.9 million dollars. Due to the size of the tunnel (approximately 25' diameter), and the installation of spiles and shotcrete, the work is progressing at a rate of 1-2 ribs per day. The seismic section work began after the completion of the 'La Brea Dome', a 112' x 66' x 63' structure to reduce construction noise and dust in the surrounding neighborhood. The TBM tunnel drives continue to make good progress despite some problems with "blocky" ground and water. As of December 10, Thelma (TBM machine) has excavated 3,576' and Louise (her counterpart) has mined 3,408' out of 12,170' each. Our best day was 120' mined by Louise on December 9, 1996.

South Bay Ocean Outfall Mining to Start after Holidays

Last time the South Bay Ocean Outfall was discussed in the Traylor Newsletter, we were busily waiting for our 200' deep dropshaft to refreeze. Following a failure in May of the frozen wall, due to a Differing Site Condition, efforts had to be put into refreezing a portion of the ground to allow excavation to begin again. For a period of 5 months, two freeze plants were run continuously and hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of Liquid Nitrogen was pumped into the ground to overcome a zone of rapidly flowing groundwater. The rate of flow of the water introduced excessive energy, or heat, into the desired freeze zone, and the results werenāt discovered until excavation reached a point where pressures from the groundwater caused heave of the shaft bottom and flow into the shaft. Once monitoring indicated that Īclosureā had occurred, excavation began again in late August. Fifteen feet of existing liner plates had to be cleaned of the frozen ground, which proved to be no small task. It did, however, go a long way toward beating the miners back into shape after a long easy summer. Chipping ice and frozen ground from the underside of the ribs using only spaders and rivet busters was a backbreaking process. Once we got below the plates, though, larger, more effective equipment was put to use. Center of the shaft was hogged out with a Hitachi excavator, and the walls were trimmed to final dimension with an Alpine road header. Both machines were nearly perfect choices for the majority of the shaft. One rather severe impact of having to refreeze a portion of the wall was that, although 99.9% of the wall was already frozen just the way we wanted it, it was subject to the same extended freezing time the damaged portion was. This led to extremely thick, hard walls to trim with the Alpine, much thicker than was needed for structural stability. At times, the frozen ground extended ten feet into the excavation. At a depth of about 110', a layer of boulders, cobbles, and coarse sands were encountered. This area, it is believed, was the route of the flowing water that caused so much trouble. The layer wasnāt done with us, however. We still had to go through it. Although an exploratory boring had been done by the engineer before bid time, and had indicated this layer, the boring showed it to be about 6' thick. On one side of the shaft, it was. On the other side, however, it dipped down so as to be over 30 feet thick. These rocks were too hard for the Alpine to handle, so a hoe ram was used with the Hitachi excavator to remove them. A boulder is defined by our contract as being a rock at least 12" in two dimensions. To prove a DSC, we saved and numbered the boulders, and ended up with well over 500 of them. There were countless smaller rocks in addition. The harder walls, and more extensive use of the Alpine eventually proved too much for it. About 2 days before reaching bottom, it died. Excavation was completed using the excavator & hoe ram. Following completion of excavation, work began on concrete lining of the shaft. First placed was a 6' thick invert slab, upon which was assembled the 36' diameter shaft forms, Rebar was installed one 18' lift ahead of time, the forms were fought into position, and the pour was made. Average cycle time ended up being about 2 days, with a total of over 2,200 cy concrete placed. Meanwhile, on the surface, much work was done to final-assemble and test the TBM, which has been named "Molita". Following delivery of the TBM from Mitsubishi in Japan, the trailing gear was delivered from Boretecās facility in Ohio. After electrical and control connections were made between the two, Traylor personnel installed foam equipment, bentonite injection equipment, grout equipment, compressed air equipment, additional control equipment, and made several modifications to the TBM to suit our purposes. On November 27, the TBM was lowered to the bottom of the shaft, marking a gigantic milestone for this project. After spending over a year to install a shaft only 200 feet deep, people were getting very anxious for this moment. Presently, the first piece of trailing gear has been lowered as well, and the task of wiring, plumbing hydraulics, and reassembling the TBM is underway. Actual mining is expected to begin shortly after the Holidays. At the other end of the tunnel, our subcontractor, Case Foundation, has been installing the Riser Shaft 2 ½ miles off shore. They are nearing completion, having installed the casings in the seabed, grouted the annulus between them, and excavated the interior area. They are presently underreaming beneath the casings to install a Ībellā of concrete, into which we will later mine through to connect with the riser. Shortly after the underreaming is complete, the actual Riser assembly will be lowered into the casings and grouted into place. In Rancho Cucamonga, CA, Sehulster-Precon has been manufacturing precast, concrete segments for the tunnel lining. Of the 4,750 total rings to be made, about 500 have been completed. Delivery to the jobsite will begin just before start of tunneling.

New Barge Launched on Ohio River

Traylor Bros. recently had a new barge constructed by Corn Island Ship Yards in Larmar, Indiana. The barge is 150' long by 54' wide by 9' deep with a single rake end. It is equipped with four 24" spud wells capable of being motorized. Deck hardware is conventional and painted yellow. The bottom, ends and sides were coated with primer and covered with coal tar epoxy. The deck was painted with two coats of organic zinc-rich primer gray. Deck loading will permit a 250-ton capacity crawler crane to work at full capacity. An American Model 280 deck hoist will be mounted on board to handle the spuds and/or anchors. This barge is scheduled to go to the Patton Island project where a 4100WV Manitowoc Crawler crane will be loaded on board, then headed south for work at the Blackwater project near Pensacola, FL

Traylor Bros. Vol. 8, No. 4 Winter 1996 EDITORS: MARGIE BERNICK & CYNTHIA GRIFFITH