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10/1/2021
The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) recently named CN the winner of the 2021 Dr. William W. Hay Award for Excellence for the New McComb Bonnet Carre Spillway Bridge project in Louisiana.
The award honors the memory of William Walter Hay, a longtime AREMA contributor and professor of railway civil engineering at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Each year, the association bestows the award to projects that best illustrate safety, innovation and service performance reliability.
This year, AREMA considered two finalists for the award: CN, and both the city of Raleigh and North Carolina Department of Transportation for the Raleigh Union Station project.
The winning CN project involved the construction of an 11,712-foot concrete trestle bridge in the body of Lake Pontchartrain. The replacement of the longest timber trestle in North America — which was built in 1934 — was the largest endeavor within CN’s strategic bridge initiative, AREMA officials said in an email.
The project addressed decades of climate influences and significant deterioration of the existing timber trestle, which was nearing the end of its service life, and enabled CN to lift permanent speed and load operating restrictions.
The project sparked creativity and innovation, including the use of unique contractor-developed, multi-functional bridge building equipment, AREMA officials said. The new trestle was completed within schedule during a challenging period that included seven named storms and the pandemic.
The project also exemplified excellent collaboration and coordination between several CN departments, consultants, contractors and subcontractors, AREMA officials said.
The association typically presents the award during its annual conference, but the 2021 version was held virtually Sept. 26-30 because of the pandemic.
"While it is unfortunate that we cannot present this award [to CN] in person, we nevertheless want to express our congratulations virtually," said Alayne Bell, AREMA’s manager of committees and technical services.