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The replacement of the old swing span bridge is progressing quickly now as we near the completion stages of the job. The center swing span was recently floated into position and fitted with mechanical components and we’ve just placed the deck. The control house is filled and all of its’ control equipment will operate everything once the bridge is complete.
Due to the nature of this type of project, there are a lot of details that need to be precisely organized and tracked to ensure proper operation of the bridge. The mechanical components require installation within a fraction of an inch for proper operation. This includes installation of the center rotation bearing, balance wheels, live load rollers, end casters, end seats, end jacks, and end stops; all of which have been installed in the field under the span with hundreds of bolts, and countless shim plates to make sure they are all properly oriented to each other.
We expect to complete the project in the Fall of 2020.

The Ossipee Bridge project is well into its second construction season after a very successful first season.  The $17 million project consists of replacing three red-list bridges and reconstructing 3.5 miles of roadway on busy Route 16 in Ossipee, NH.

In our first season, Reed & Reed primarily focused on constructing and completing the bridge slide for the Bearcamp Relief Bridge, a 170’ two-span bridge over a bypass channel for the Bearcamp River. New substructures were built in the existing roadway and under the existing bridge while the entire new bridge superstructure was built 15 ft. away on temporary supports. Then during an 84-hour window in September, Reed & Reed demolished the existing bridge, slid the new bridge horizontally 50 ft. and lowered it onto its permanent bearings. We completed the work in 72 hours, 12 hours ahead of schedule.

Following completion of the Bearcamp Relief bridge, our team moved on to constructing the Lovell River bridge in a more conventional manner. We built a detour bridge and are constructing the new Lovell River Bridge on-line.  We also began substructure work at the Bearcamp River bridge, the largest of the three bridges to be replaced. This is also a slide-in bridge like the Relief bridge and is due to be completed in September.

Finally, our subcontractor AJ Coleman has completed a large portion of the Route 16 roadway rehabilitation on the project.  They will be completing most of their other earthwork this summer and will finish paving following the Bearcamp River bridge slide.

We hope to be substantially complete on the project later this year.

The new south bound bridge (Phase 2) of the $44 million I-91 Rockingham VT Bridge Replacement Project is underway.  The new north bound bridge (Phase 1) is now carrying NB & SB traffic of Vermont I-91 over the Williams River.

The new 880-foot-long bridges are 4-span structures, with spliced concrete beams and concrete bridge decks.  The bridge decks are 130 ft. above the Williams River.  This project is Reed & Reed’s first ever spliced concrete beam bridge.  The beam structure consists of five runs of 7 individual concrete beams that were installed on temporary support framework, aligned and held in position with thirty steel strong backs.  Cast in place concrete closures were placed between the ends of the beams and then three, 19 strand tendons running from abutment to abutment were installed and tensioned.  Crews will be grouting the tendon and working on the concrete deck and barrier for the south bound bridge.  Work is expected to complete this season.  Once the new SB bridge is open, the temporary crossovers will be removed and traffic restored fully in both directions.

After years of planning and permitting, work is finally underway at the Weaver site in Hancock County, Maine.  As Engineer-Procure-Construct (EPC) contractor, Reed & Reed’s scope includes installing 22 Vestas V126, 3.45MW turbines on 116.5-meter towers, all sitework, construction of a new Operations and Maintenance facility, overhead and underground electrical/fiber collection systems and 34.5/115kV electrical substation.

These towers are among the tallest in the Americas with the hub height at 382 feet and the blade tips reaching some 585 feet.  They will compliment similar towers at the nearby Hancock Wind project which Reed & Reed built in 2016 and the adjacent Bull Hill Wind Project, also built by Reed & Reed, in 2012.

The first turbine deliveries begin in February and will continue into the spring, weather and road conditions permitting.  Final completion and commercial operation for this $150 million project are scheduled for late 2020.

Reed & Reed crews have completed installing two new submarine power cables under Seneca Lake in upstate New York.  The cables are each 16,000 feet long and lay on the lake bottom where water depths reach 600 feet.  Near shore where the water is shallow the cables were installed in trenches and backfilled.  Reed & Reed’s work also included installing new riser structures and switches on both the east and west sides of Seneca Lake where the new lines come ashore.  Fiber optic data and communications lines were also installed as part of the project scope.

Once the new cables were installed and energized Reed & Reed removed four existing cables that followed the same route but were installed in the 1940s.  The new cables are a significant upgrade to the local transmission grid and increase reliability as well as adding back-up capacity.

The project was years in the planning stages.  The new submarine cables were manufactured for Reed & Reed to exacting specifications by the Kerite Company, cabled together and armored in Florida, and delivered to the area by rail on a 150,000-pound cable reel that Reed & Reed loaded onto its barge for the trips across the lake.

Increasingly challenging fall weather in the Finger Lakes region forced the cable laying barge into safe harbor at times but the Reed & Reed crews found calm water work windows in which to install the new lines.  Hats off to the entire Reed & Reed project crew.

Sometimes the pre-construction phase of a project can be longer that the actual construction phase.  Such is the case at the Antrim wind project where Reed & Reed has been in a support role for over 9 years. But happily, in April 2018 the project finally received the go ahead to build. We mobilized in July 2018 and our civil subcontractor Sargent Corporation started moving earth. We had a little over 3 miles of access roads to build, as well as 9 Turbine pads, O&M building subgrade fill, and a Substation yard. Reed & Reed’s substation crew built the collector substation yard while waiting for turbine deliveries to begin in May, 2019.  Foundations are complete and mud season is almost behind us.

Reed & Reed’s electrical team is building the underground and overhead collector systems and the project substation.

We will move one of our M-16000 top-out cranes to Antrim to erect the nine Siemens 2.3mw turbines on 80-meter towers.  The work is scheduled for a September 2019 final completion.

The Ossipee Bridge project is well under way. The $17 million project consists of replacing three bridges on busy Route 16 in Ossipee, NH and reconstructing some 3.4 miles of roadway. One of the bridges will be built while we shift traffic onto a detour while the other two require us to construct the new bridges adjacent to the existing bridges and during an 84-hour closure, demolish the old bridges and slide in the new ones. This will be accomplished over 2 construction seasons.  It is our understanding that this is the first “slide-in” bridge project for NHDOT.  Reed & Reed has successfully completed several bridge slide projects previously.

Our earthwork subcontractor A.J. Coleman is performing the roadwork while Reed & Reed completes the three bridges.  Because of the heavy seasonal traffic in the region, the are a number of restrictions on operations to minimize the impact on traffic during construction.

Reed & Reed is driving 24-inch and 30-inch pipe piles up to 200 feet to bedrock, constructing precast and cast-in-place concrete abutments and piers and building composite steel beam and concrete superstructures for all three bridges.  Work is on schedule for a June 25, 2021 completion.