New Oakland/San Fransisco Bay Bridge construction pics. Lots of cranes

[ke6gwf]

Here are some shots of sections of the suspension bridge portion of the deck being offloaded from the slow boat from china.
I was riding back with the boss from another CalTrans project, and I talked him into pulling into the Fluer yard at the east end of the bridge. We fit in except we just had vests instead of PFD's, which is why I didn't get any closer.
We weren't able to stay long enough to watch the lift, the boss had to get to a pre-bid, and it was going to take them a while to hook up.

I just carry a pocket sized (water/shock/sand/grease/diesel/me-proof) camera, so I don't have much zoom, but it's better than crayons!

The Port of Oakland is in the background. They had to make the pick quick because when they swing the crane around it blocks the ship channel. They set the sections onto barges and anchor them out in the bay for later use.

In the first pic you can see some red iron in the foreground. It's part of some falsework, and for reference the plate on the end was over 2 inches thin.

More to come!

 

[ke6gwf]

More pics. I will be posting more of the best, but all the rest I have up at http://picasaweb.google.com/benablackburn


Main tower construction. The red iron will support Enerpac Strand Jacks to lift sections of tower up. They warn everybody on the traffic reports not to stare as they drive over the old bridge as they are lifting them. I just take pictures!

They had just set one of the last sections of falsework for the pre-fab suspension section.

This is the west end of the suspension span. The round yellow things serve the same function as the dowels on your dining room table! The "Geordi La Forge Visor" on the corner is where the suspension cables wrap around and under. They anchor at the opposite end.

I didn't see what they were moving with this frame, but it was interesting the way they were counterweighting to be able to swing the load under the end of the deck

This is looking west towards Treasure Island. The tunnel is right behind the cranes. An interesting tidbit I picked up is that all those support columns are the same length. Where the ground is higher they dig the hole deeper and then there is a casing around the column. This means that in an earthquake everything can move together instead of the shorter columns getting ripped apart as the tall ones sway. The skinny columns in the background are holding up the "S-Curve" temporary section C.C. Meyers slid in on a Labor Day Weekend a couple of years ago to give them room to connect the new bridge straight to the tunnel. I guess they aren't too worried about it coming down in a quake! The current Google Sat pic is just after they swapped bridge decks like some giant monorail switch. http://maps.google.com/...

 

[ke6gwf]

First 3 are courtesy of Google, and sadly I think may be sharper than my camera does from 500 feet away! http://maps.google.com/...
You can see a corner of their yard in one of the pics.

The crane is the "Left Coast Lifter". The barge was built in Portland OR to comply with the Jones Act, then sent to Shanghai China where Zhenhua Port Machinery Co. Ltd. (ZPMC) installed the 1,800 Ton Shear-Leg. It was custom built for this specific bridge job for Fleur, and will be looking for a new home when it's done.








Any ideas what make and model these cranes are?


Here's another of my drive by's from a couple of weeks ago when they were rigging another section of the bolt-together self-anchored suspension span to set it on the false work. They set it on large cradles which they then slide the last few feet to mate up with the previous section


I wasn't able to stick around to watch the lift, something about a load of hot asphalt and a waiting crew...
On my way home I swung over to Treasure Island (which you can see in the background of the last pic) and got some more pics, but don't have much zoom... They had already set the section, although were still rigged.
They are getting ships in about every 2 months with 2-4 sections per ship (I think), so I still might be able to make it when they are doing a lift. Might grab a better camera too!

(When I mentioned Treasure Island before, I meant Yerba Buena Island, which is the one the bridge connects to. They often talk about TI on the traffic reports so that's what I think of it as! TI was manmade for a military base which is why it's flat)


Here's the official bridge website, it's got a lot of interesting pics and video.
http://baybridgeinfo.org/

More to come!

 

[qball]

awesome pics and info, brother.

 

[Turbo21835]

Has it really gotten to a point where we are shipping bridges from china to put together here? When are folks here going to understand building else where and shipping here is not in our best interest?

 

[Lee-online]

It is sad that it cheaper to ship a bridge half way around the world than it is to build it here.

Its getting harder and harder to buy American.

 

[Dualie]

I pisses me off something royal that our hard earned money is being pumped into the Chinese economy during these very lean times when its for damn certain that an American company could have fabricated these sections.

 

[ke6gwf]

Well, if we quit shipping all our recycled steel over there, maybe they would have to make them here!

I am seeing it more and more now where big projects like this are mostly Chinese when you get down to it. And I'll bet you that the Left Coast Lifter barge was made of Chinese steel assembled in Oregon.

And you know that Apple products are all made in China, including using child labor? I just heard an interview from a guy that toured the factory were the iPads are made...
I knew there was a reason I never liked Apple!

Ben~

 

[Dualie]

That left coast lifter barge was built in china and assembled in china. they did nothing to hide this fact.

 

[BigIron25]

Awesome pictures. it always amazes me seeing how they do these huge projects like this. all the planning and special falsework and jacks etc etc. great job ke6gwf!
Its all about money now days gents, and well keep slitting our own throats by sending our manufacturing and jobs overseas. Wed rather spend less money halfway around the world than help a family out here in the states. As we say around here "who do you know in china" Once again great pics Ke6gwf!

 

[Greg]

It is not just ship steel scrap to china. It is the G-- Da-- US government regulations which have and continues to drive our heavy industry out of the country through over regulation and the highest corporate tax rates in the world. Oh ya, and the yahoo in the white house now just keeps heaping it on. No more drilling for oil, no more renewing coal mine permits in West Virginia. We are supposed to smile through all this and say "solar, wind and imported from spain high speed rail will save the economy." So much for "shovel ready" stuff is he calls it.

Donald Trump came out with a rant on how stupid the idiots are that we have in washington and how they are responsible for the whole mess.

 

[Jdigger4130]

Thanks for the pics! I have been watching this DEBACLE for awhile my self! Whats this well oiled project at now?? How many MILLIONS over budget and years behind??? Not to take anything away from the actual workers but the project is a running joke w all my friends! Caltrans doing their part to BURY my states economy!!! Neat machines and amazing undertaking... Put in the wrong hands!!!

 

[ke6gwf]

I haven't been driving past this for a while as most of our projects have been in the East Bay recently, and the subscription email notification feature is still not working, so I haven't been back for a while!
I hope to get some updated pictures one of these days. The main tower is almost full height last I saw (from across the bay).

@Dualie
The Barge itself was built by U.S. Barge in Portland, Oregon

http://www.usbarge.com/US_Barge_stiff_leg_crane_barge.html

http://www.mtc.ca.gov/news/info/crane.htm,

which is required by the Jones Act. (Any ship in inter-coastal service has to be constructed and manned by US people)
The crane was built in China, and the completed barge was then sent to China to install the crane.
As it was, the Coast Guard almost required that the crane be built in the US, since it was to be a major part of the finished product, but they ended up permitting it as well.

My comment was that even though the barge was built in Portland to comply with the Jones Act, the steel probably came from China, since most steel does these days...


Maybe I should post some pics of the water main we just rockwheeled through in downtown [local big city] last week.... Hmmm
(Utility had failed to properly mark the location in the area we were trenching, Prime contractor had failed to notice it or include it on the prints, electrical sub-contractor had failed to notice it and pothole for it, and we come in at night and trench at the depth we are told along the line they show us.)
It just barely nicked the top of an 8"? cast iron main that was 1" below our nominal trench depth. Basically machined 3 grooves across it.


Ben~