Winter 1998 Newsletter
Winter 1998 Newsletter
William F. Traylor
By Thomas W. Traylor
My Dad returned from World War II with little more than an education, a wife, and
two sons, ages 3 and 6 (me). At age 33, he founded Traylor Bros. and, by 1956, had
built his first Ohio River bridge and excavated his first tunnel. With no financial
resources, a losing job would have buried him. How did he manage to build so many
different and complex projects in those early years while producing dependable profit? He
had never built a river cofferdam. He had never excavated a tunnel. He didn’t
hire consultants. Each month, he and his family lived on the proceeds of the business. No
profit - no rent - no meals. No bank would bail him out if they failed.
As I reflect on his situation during those years, I know it was not luck, but
careful selection and pricing of work, sound engineering, and determination that produced
his success.
When our present enterprise fails to produce financial results, it is for the
opposite reasons: a lack of care in the selection and pricing of work, poor engineering,
or bureaucratic managers that allow "others" to shoulder the blame for failure.
Although, many of our present managers and engineers would satisfy Bill Traylor, all of us
have much to learn from him.
My Dad died on January 2, 1999. In each newsletter this year, I will tell a story
about him to demonstrate qualities I believe are necessary for our success.
This article was written in two installments, the first in September and the second in December.
Summer Project Update
Greetings from the back roads of South Carolina! After narrowly escaping the
wrath of Hurricane Bonnie and getting pounded by the rains from Tropical Storm Earl, all
of us here at the Conway Bypass are hoping for a more peaceful winter. For those of you
not familiar with our project, The Conway Bypass is a twenty-eight mile long expressway
that is being built into Myrtle Beach for the SCDOT in the hopes of alleviating some of
the horrible traffic in this area. Fluor Daniel is managing five contractors on this
project including Traylor Bros. Our part of the project includes the construction of
twenty-five bridges, totaling over 20,000 lineal feet, over the swamps, rivers, and lakes
of Horry County. Twenty-four of the twenty-five bridges are precast flat slab construction
and range in length from 120 lf to 3,960 lf. These flat slab bridges are prefabricated in
pieces in our precast yard (piles, caps, and slabs) and then assembled in the field, all
part of our fast-pace construction method. Because our remote site is isolated from the
congestion of Myrtle Beach by the Intracoastal Waterway, it is not uncommon to see
wildlife such as bear, deer, panthers, and large snakes wandering through the woods. We
will keep this in mind as we venture into the swamps to begin construction of the bridges.
The first six months of this project have been spent working out the design and
getting the test pile program under way. Crews have completed over half of the test pile
program. The program consists of 10 statistically loaded test piles and 20 additional PDA
only test piles located at various areas throughout the 28-mile length of the project. The
results of these load tests will help our designer determine final pile lengths for the
bridges that we must build. Multiple sites that are isolated and often difficult to access
have challenged our crews to the utmost. Needless to say, the crews have become very
efficient at the tear down and re-assembly of our test pile cranes. Thankfully, they have
persevered through mud, rain, and wind to pave the way for our bridge crews to start work.
The thirty-acre casting yard has been set up adjacent to the Intracoastal Waterway
near Little River, SC. Over the next two years, this large site will produce 150,000
lineal feet of 18-inch piling, 487 caps, and 2,768 flat slabs. We have recently cast the
first of our caps and piles and expect to cast our first flat slabs soon. Our bridge crews
will rely heavily on the productivity of the precast yard, so everyone is pitching in to
get the yard up and running at full speed as soon as possible.
In the hope of starting construction on our bridges by late September, we recently
began mobilizing to our first bridge site, Bridge 42. Bridge 42 is a 1360 LF dual bridge
that is the eastern-most of all the structures that we will build. We expect to tie into a
bridge being erected by another contractor this spring. As part of the mobilization to
Bridge 42, we have received two new Manitowoc 888's, the largest crawler cranes in
Traylor's fleet. We are quite proud to have these beautiful "self-erecting"
cranes on our site and plan to take good care of them while they are here. Our area
superintendent, a long-time member of the Traylor organization, will be looking after
these cranes along with all the bridge construction on our first heading.
Winter Project Update
Since the summer update, our project has progressed significantly. Our casting yard
is setup and at full production. Crews are producing up to 55 flat slabs, 8 caps, and 2900
LF of piling in one week. This is nearly 1400 cubic yards of concrete per week.
Those are good numbers, but everyone is dedicated to improving them.
Crews finished the test pile program and began construction on a second bridge in
November. Bridge 29/30 is a single bridge that crosses 3680 feet of swamp. A third
construction crew recently began work on Bridge 37E, one of many smaller bridges that they
have ahead of them.
All of this progress would not have been possible without the generosity of our
Neuse River Project. Key personnel from Neuse have moved down to South Carolina to aid us
in achieving our goals of a safe, efficient, and fast-paced project. Besides personnel,
several cranes and many truckloads of miscellaneous material have also been supplied to
the Conway Bypass from New Bern. Thank you Neuse River!
All of us here on the Conway Bypass have enjoyed an interesting summer and fall and
are looking forward to gearing up for a productive winter. Hopefully, by then, the
hurricanes will have gone away and the bears and snakes will be hibernating.
Sailboat Success!
Greetings again from the ranch out in Oklahoma, far away from the hustle and
bustle of city life.
The project is in overdrive now with the substructure making good progress.
Only 21 drilled shafts remain on the northbound bridge with 43 left on the entire
job. Five of the twenty-four pier columns and caps are done now, so the erection
won't be far behind. Two trusses weighing 50 tons each will span the piers to erect
the segments. The post-tensioning for the segments is nearly completed, so the plan
to begin erection in March is going smoothly. With the addition of our erection
superintendent, there will be no stopping the men and women of Sailboat Bridge.
There is now a better sense of camaraderie in the air. Every day, the foremen
and superintendents remind the employees to work as a team because they are building a
piece of history, not just tying some rebar or pouring some concrete. In case you
didn't already know, this bridge is the first segmental bridge in Oklahoma, and the
project is the largest in the state's history. That's all for now; you'll hear from
us again in the Spring newsletter issue.
San Mateo Bridge Seismic Retrofit - Hinges
A major portion of the structural steel work on the San Mateo - Hayward bridge is
the box girder hinge retrofit.
The box girders themselves are square or rectangular in cross-section and built
primarily from 5/8" steel plates that are welded together. Longitudinal and
transverse stiffeners run throughout the box girders the entire two mile length of the
high rise. The 10 foot width of a girder is constant across the bridge but the depth
varies from 10 feet at the abutments to nearly 30 feet at the channel span haunches. Near
every pier there is a hinge joint in each girder to be retrofitted,
The hinge retrofit work is designed to reinforce the existing splices in the box
girders and to dampen the bridge oscillations (dissipate energy) in the event of an
earthquake. The work is divided up into three main areas: longitudinal restrainer
assemblies, hanger rod assemblies, and shear locks. These three components work together
as a unit to reinforce the girder in each of the three principle axis directions,
The longitudinal restrainer assemblies function exactly as their name implies; they
restrain movement along the longitudinal axis of the box girder. They are composed of
reaction beams, connection beams, longitudinal restrainer rods, and rubber fender washers.
The longitudinal restrainer assemblies work as follows: The 2-3/4" diameter
longitudinal restrainer rods span across the joint in the hinge to a reaction beam on each
end. The rods are typically about 15 feet long and are placed in one layer of 9 rods or
two layers of 8 rods. Each 2500 lb. reaction beam transmits the force of the rods directly
into the webs of the box girder by means of four connection beams. The force in the rods
is dampened on one end by the rubber fender washer, which compresses like a large spring.
The hanger rod assemblies restrain the joint from displacement vertically. In each
hinge, eight 2-1/2" diameter rods hang between the upper cantilever girder and the
lower suspended girder, These rods connect to the existing floorbeam, webs via heavy
welded bearing plate assemblies top and bottom, Rocker bars on the bearing plates allow
the pinned expansion joints to expand and contract without binding the system.
The top and bottom shear lock plates restrain the girder from lateral displacement.
The top shear lock plate hangs off the cantilevered girder and penetrates the suspended
span girder through the diaphragm (bulkhead) stiffener, Now bulkhead reinforcement plates
are bolted on each side of the cantilevered top shear lock plate to prevent lateral
movement,
The bottom shear lock plate functions in the same manner. The bottom shear lock
center plate cantilevers off the bottom flange of the suspended girder and is locked in
place by a "bumper" plate bolted on each side of the anchored girder. The bottom
shear lock is also the only part of the hinge retrofit that is on the outside of the box
girder,
The hinge retrofit work is just beginning to get underway with the first two hinges
@ pier 17. So far, the main challenges of the hinge retrofit work are sequencing,
aligning, and erecting 20+ tons of steel in a 10' x l0' x l5' box. There are also a
considerable number of small pieces to keep track of in the process.
The Neuse River Bridge Project is a tri-level interchange and bridge system
connecting Hwy 70 in New Bern with NC 17 in Bridgeton. The project consists of widening
the existing Hwy 70 bridge over the Trent River, constructing an interchange around the
existing off ramps to New Bern, building a replacement for the existing Neuse River
Bridge, and building an extensive approach on the east side of the Neuse River. The new
Neuse River Bridge will have a 65 ft. clearance over the navigational channel instead of
the original swing span drawbridge. The widening and east approach contracts are held by
two local North Carolina contractors, T.A. Loving Co. and BMCO. Traylor Bros. holds the
bulk of the project with the interchange and replacement.
The Trent River Bridge widening and east approach contracts are near completion,
whereas the interchange and bridge replacement contract has one more year with completion
scheduled for September 22, 1999. Emotions are running high as the last months of 1998
near. Only a few piers remain to be built as the majority of work scheduled for the final
year is deck construction. Approximately 56,000 m2 of 104,000 m2 of deck remains to be
poured, a majority of which lies in the 1.5 km Main Bridge Trestle portion of the bridge
now under construction. Unlike the interchange and other steel girder sections of the
bridge, the trestle superstructure is concrete girder and should prove to be more
accessible with less equipment. We found ourselves constantly moving crews and equipment
from one ramp to another while building the intersection. By employing a more linear
approach to our current system of construction, we feel that this long section of trestle
bridge will allow the crew to become even more efficient.
In other news, the NCDOT signed a supplemental agreement with Traylor Bros. in April 1998 to
construct approximately 13 acres of wetlands as part of the Lengyel Mitigation Plan. The
permits for the Neuse River project require the NCDOT to develop and implement an approved
mitigation plan to compensate for unavoidable wetland impacts associated with this
project. This agreement, the quintessential symbol of partnering, was extremely beneficial
to both Traylor Bros. and the department. Traylor Bros. was allowed land access to an, otherwise, inaccessible
area, and the department's permit requirements were one step closer to being fulfilled.
All crews are working vigorously to make the project a complete success and deserve
special recognition. As the author of the article tours the jobsite to take photos, he is
reminded of the proverb, "A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link," and
how strong this "chain" has become. Let this be the vote of confidence we need
to take us into 1999.
Drinking water is arguably the most important utility provided to any city. Yet
greater Boston is the only major American metropolitan area to rely on a single water
supply conduit. The Hultman Aqueduct delivers 85 percent of Boston's drinking water, but
has no back-up system to allow for maintenance.
Our joint venture is two years into a seven-year project for the Massachusetts Water
Resources Authority (MWRA) to correct that precarious situation.
A Shea-Traylor-Healy joint venture is using state-of-the-art technology to build the
largest section of the long-awaited MetroWest Water Supply Tunnel. This project is as
efficient, safe, and environmentally friendly as possible. Two tunnel boring machines
(TBMs) are simultaneously mining from east and west headings. A continuous conveyor system
uses "up-to-the-minute" PLC technology to remove rock (or muck) from the tunnel,
and an ecologically safe water treatment plant was built to handle construction
dewatering.
The Shea-sponsored job is operating from Shaft "L," located in Framingham,
which is 20 miles west of Boston. Eight separate construction contracts make up the entire
project. When completed in 2003, the new system will carry water to 2.5 million residents
and 5,000 businesses in Boston and 38 other Massachusetts communities. The tunnel will
provide an increased supply of up to 450 million gallons of water a day.
The MWRA awarded the $252 million contract to the Shea-Traylor-Healy joint venture
to construct the middle 11.9 miles of the tunnel, which is running below the original
aqueduct, 400 ft below ground.
Four MWRA pump stations, used for the original aqueduct, interface with four riser
shafts, each four feet in diameter. The pump stations are located at intervals along the
tunnel, and the riser shafts tie the new tunnel into the existing pump stations.
Two 15 ft diameter shafts, located 250 ft apart on the east bound tunnel, are
separated by a valve chamber on the surface that contains 120-inch pipe and valves.
After the new tunnel is in use, the old aqueduct will be repaired to function as a
back-up system.
Two 16-ft diameter TBMs are mining simultaneously from east and west headings to remove
excavated muck. Each TBM utilizes a computer-controlled alignment system.
Computerized Continuous Conveyor System. The Robbins TBMs are being used in
conjunction with a highly sophisticated continuous conveyor system. The conveyors
simultaneously feed muck from each end to the main work shaft. A vertical conveyor
lifts the muck from both headings to the surface where overland conveyors move the
excavated material to a massive stockpile area.
A common computer controls and monitors each conveyor. If all conditions are not
correct, the computer will shut down the systems sequentially to avoid the backup of rock
at any of the conveyor transfer points. This high-tech system of electronic sequencing is
efficient, economical, and safe because it ensures that everything is in proper range
before any process can be initiated.
The unique aspect of PLC technology is that it can perform and communicate all this
information through a single, thin data cable running the length of the tunnel. Fifteen
years ago, this level of control was not economical because it would have required miles
of bulky, expensive cable traveling from the control source to each system.
The MetroWest job marks a new era of environmental sophistication. Before
construction dewatering is discharged from the tunnel into the nearby Sudbury River, it is
processed by a $3.5 million temporary water treatment plant built for the project. The
plant is capable of processing 3,000 gallons of water a minute. According to experts,
there are many towns whose permanent treatment systems are not as sophisticated.
With the MetroWest water tunnel completion scheduled for March 2003, residents of
the greater Boston area will begin the 21st Century with the reliable water system that
will serve them for decades.
The Natcher Bridge is generating quite a bit of interest and excitement around
Owensboro and southern Indiana. TV crews and newspaper reporters have visited our site on
a regular basis. Vijay Chandra, who led the design team for the New York firm of Parsons,
Brinckerhoff, Quade and Douglas, said in a speech to the Owensboro Chamber of Commerce,
"The Owensboro bridge is very tall. We wanted to make it a monument to the
community."
Now it is up to Traylor Bros. to make this monument a reality, and it is not easy. Installing
102" diameter drilled shafts 140 ft long in the middle of the river has special
problems. Forming, tying rebar, and pouring hollow tower legs that are battered 20 degrees
from vertical has proved to be very difficult. That is why it takes special people to get
the job done.
Progress is being made. The twin towers, which will be 345 ft above the water when
completed, are well underway. The Indiana tower is complete to 60 ft above the water and
the first pour on the Kentucky tower is complete. Most of the land shafts are in on the
Kentucky side and pier columns are being poured. Technique shafts and production shafts
are being installed in the water for piers 5 and 6.
Crews are making good progress with the precast deck panels at the casting yard.
About a third of the 290 panels have been poured and moved to a storage area.
The weather has been dry and favorable through summer and early fall and we are
hoping this continues through winter and allows us to stay on schedule.
On October 26, 1998, The County of Orange issued Notice to Proceed to the Traylor
Pacific Division for the demolition of the Aliso Fishing Pier. What that meant to this
author and support crews were three months of paid vacation in Laguna Beach, California
... with one little hitch. We had to tear down a pier (on a beach open to the public) in
high, winter surf conditions. So, we began to tap our vast network of Traylor Bros.
connections.
First, we borrowed two bents of trestle from the Conway Bypass project in Myrtle
Beach, South Carolina. Our thanks to the Heavy Civil Division. We, then, looked for a way
to move the pier back to the land as it was being torn down. A railroad complete with
flatcars is what we needed! Hey, those guys in Studio City, California, own a railroad!
Needless to say, we borrowed the Traylor Pacific Railroad from the Underground Division.
We have driven all of 11 bents of the trestle and leapfrogged the American 9310 to
the end of the trestle. The most difficult part of this operation was turning the
23-degree angle necessary to access all of the caps. We have, also, completed the Traylor
Pacific Railroad. It arrives on regularly scheduled intervals and rides are available if
you don't mind sitting next to a 25-ton cap. Our next major task will be extracting the
piles from the ocean floor. This operation will begin next week. Barring bad weather, we
should complete the demolition by January 15. As much fun as this project has been, we
must move on. I hear we're being sent on another vacation! Next time, we're going to the
Balboa Island Bridge. Why do these vacations always involve piledriving?