Lander Street Bridge

Normally I don’t mind being stopped at a crossing by an occasional train because…it’s a train! And rarely is the delay more than a few minutes. But one day last week I was stuck for over 45 minutes. It was a local train that was moving empties for the local recycling company on a side track and clearly something had gone wrong. All I knew is that it wasn’t moving. Meanwhile, the through traffic on the other tracks continued to flow along normally.

The view from Lander Street.

If I had been in a car it would have been easy to get out of there and go use another crossing, which I normally do when I encounter a completely stopped freight train. But I was on foot and the nearest grade-separated crossing would have added 1.5 miles to my trip, which in retrospect still would have been faster had I know how long the wait would be. There are two slightly closer at-grade crossings, either of which would have only added 1.0 miles to my trip, but I couldn’t see either of them from where I was so I wasn’t sure if they were blocked as well. I tried checking Seattle traffic cameras but none of them in the area were currently positioned so I could see any rail crossings. Google traffic showed stopped traffic on one of the crossings (Holgate Street) so I assumed that was blocked; Google traffic data wasn’t available for the other crossing (Horton Street).

All of this will be solved soon once the new Lander Street Bridge is completed. This grade separation project has been needed for decades but was long dormant due to lack of funding. The project finally came to life in 2016, construction started just a little over a year ago in May, 2018 and the new bridge is expected to open early in 2020.

Meanwhile, it would be helpful if the city would keep at least one of the two cameras along Holgate (at 1st and 4th Avenues) focused on Holgate so we can tell when it is blocked by a train, or just add a third camera dedicated to Holgate.

In addition to potentially avoiding any future 45-minute train delays, this bridge will immediately become a popular stop for train fans and photographers. Why? Imagine the view below, but elevated 25 feet above the tracks, with over 100 train movements per day.

The new bridge will cross over four tracks which split into seven tracks just north of the bridge. The far left track is used by Amtrak for maneuvering commuter trains in and out of storage; the three center tracks are the through tracks, and the far right tracks are the storage area for the recycling facility. The building in the center is the Amtrak locomotive facility; the Seattle passenger station is 1.3 miles north of where the photograph is taken.

View of the center span in progress. The crossing signals and arms for street traffic were removed right at the start of the project, but the smaller pedestrian crossing arms are still in place as the city required the contractor to maintain pedestrian access through the work zone. 

Another view from underneath of the recently installed girders.

A view of the east approach. This area (and the west approach) will be built up using blocks of lightweight Geofoam instead of soil, as the weight of the soil would likely cause subsidence.

Here's an elevated view from a distance. It's not a great picture, but you can see the extent of the span over the tracks and the Recycling Center in the background on the right. And as a bonus, there are two Link light rail trains in the background on the left.

Just a few more months and these signals will be gone too, and no more getting stuck behind a stopped train.

In my ongoing series of "unusual things I see out my office window," this week's oddity was a long string of flatcars carrying an assortment of military transport vehicles. It was in the Stacy Yard for a couple days.