Oregon’s busiest two-lane crossing has opened after four years of planning and construction that included building a new bridge and moving an old one for use as a detour.
The first engine has been installed in a new Siemens Charger locomotive, a key step in supplying the Washington State Dept. of Transportation with eight new Siemens Charger locomotives as part of a nearly $800 million Cascades High-Speed Rail federal grant to improve passenger rail.
The total feet mined by Bertha, the world’s largest diameter tunnel-boring machine currently moving under downtown Seattle, hasn’t been impressive in the last few weeks simply for distance, but the fact that Bertha continues adding to its mining total is a feat worth noting.
The size of the Sound Transit tunnel-boring machine Pamela—at 21 ft in diameter—doesn’t compare to the world’s largest TBM, Bertha, at 57 ft in diameter, tunneling in the same city.
In a surprise move last week, the GOP-led Washington State Senate voted 25-21 not to confirm Washington State Dept. of Transportation Secretary Lynn Peterson.