Crews replacing 1,000s of C.O. railroad ties

A more than $8 million construction project has arrived in Central Oregon, but it’s not staying in one place for very long.

A 70-member BNSF Railway “super rail gang” crew — twice as big as the typical crew — got to work in Bend on Friday. It’s using 40 machines to replace some 70,000 railroad ties along the train route that goes from the Columbia River south through Bend to Klamath Falls, railroad spokesman Gus Melonas in Seattle said Friday.

Work on the Bend-area tracks began Friday and will head north to Culver for the next four to five weeks, first affecting the Bend crossings at Revere Avenue, Butler Market Road, Quincy Avenue and Cooley Road, Melonas said.

The Central Oregon work will involve replacing 35,000 of the wooden railroad ties that are inspected each year, “upgrading for safety and efficiency,” Melonas said.

“We try to minimize blocking crossings for an extended period” of time, he added, noting that the goal is to not block any crossing for “more than 10-minute periods at a time.”

The crew gives the area they are moving through an economic boost, staying at local hotels and using local services, the railroad representative said.

That’s not the only rail-related projects happening around the area this spring.

The city of Bend announced a few days ago that westbound Greenwood Avenue near downtown will be closed four days a week for seven weeks in April and May for a project to replace decking on a railroad bridge.

Another railroad maintenance project is upcoming in Redmond, Melonas said, a nine-day project the second week of April to replace rails, affecting the crossings at Antler and Evergreen avenues.