Trinity Railway Express (TRE) / DART Bridges at IH 820
North Richland Hills, TX

IEA was responsible for preparing the Exhibit A and the Plans Specs & Estimates (PS&E) for the TRE / DART Railroad crossing over IH 820 as part of the construction of the North Tarrant Expressway Design/Build Project.

The project included 3,477 linear feet of track work for original and shoofly lines. The proposed highway improvements required the existing 234 ft. DART bridge to be removed and replaced with two new longer bridges to accommodate the widened highway.

One bridge accommodated the main line track and the other was used for the proposed SW2NE Corridor station siding and also served as the shoofly bridge while the existing bridge was removed. Both of the new ballasted deck through plate girder bridges were designed and will be constructed on a 30 degree skew with the roadway. The shoofly bridge was a 377 ft. long, 4-span, 107’-75’-75’-120’ unit and the replacement bridge was a 374ft. long, 4-span, 107’-75’-75’-117’ unit.

The Bridges were designed to accommodate Coopers E80 Class I railroad loads and were designed to meet the latest DART, UPRR and AREMA requirements. The total weight of the structural steel for both bridges is 3,200,000 lbs.