Jay-Jay Railroad Bridge Rehabilitation

RS&H provided design and construction administration services for the rehabilitation of the Jay-Jay Railroad Bridge at NASA Kennedy Space Center. The 150-foot, single-leaf, bascule bridge with steel approach spans carries the NASA/Department of Defense railway 2,008 linear feet over the Indian River/Intracoastal Waterway. It provides the only means for transporting the space shuttle’s 12-foot wide, 150-ton solid rocket booster segments to the launch site, as well as other heavy equipment in and out of the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

The five-year rehabilitation project involved repairing the existing steel superstructure and concrete substructure elements, which included restoring the steel span and concrete bents and piles, as well as replacing all creosote wooden ties across the bridge. The project also included removing and reconstructing all low-voltage “blocked” rail connections, which operate the automatic bascule closure and opening system. Therefore, the team put the bridge in manual mode for the duration of bascule repairs. The team maintained a 72-hour reopening to rail traffic at all times, as well as a 48-hour emergency reopening during the hurricane season.

When a significant amount of deterioration was uncovered during construction, which exceeded the project’s scope of work, we engineered change orders and negotiated with the contractor to incorporate the unforeseen field conditions into the work. The team also ensured the proactive capture and disposal of all industrial waste, given the project was in and around a sensitive and aggressively corrosive brackish marine environment.