Paul Fischer

    A 10-mile stretch of railroad track running just south of Highway 34 that extends beyond and between Tamora and Seward is in the beginning stages of getting a sister track.
     The current project, focused on building the grade and bridges, started in mid-June and is planned for completion at the end of October. Starting next spring the new track will be laid, and in early summer trains will begin running on it.
     Production engineer and Berlington Northern Santa Fe employee Mike Schaefer, who is overseeing the project with engineer French Thompson, said current traffic levels on the single track make another track necessary.
     "There's about 60 trains a day running on the single track," he said. "It's getting close to capacity when you're talking about a single track."
     Schaefer said the stretch between Seward and Tamora is just one place where the railroad track, which runs through Alliance and up into Wyoming, is getting a facelift. There are two other projects up in the sandhills to lay a second track, as there are 60 miles worth of single track along the route between Lincoln and Alliance.
     BNSF spots these "bottleneck" areas with a computer model that shows where another track is needed. Schaefer said that within the next three or four years the route will be double-tracked all the way to Alliance.
     "We're filling in all the gaps, which is necessary to serve our customers," he said.
     The second track will differ in that asphalt will be laid, providing a solid base and keeping mud from coming up through the rock and ruining the ballast.
     Thirty employees are at work on laying the grade. Some obstacles to construction have included avoiding and working around MCI and Windstream telephone lines, and they have negotiated with local farmers to move several pivots so they don't hit the right-of-way.
     When the track crosses 294th Road approaching Seward, the new track will cross the existing track and run on the north side. BNSF is paying to move the electric and water lines 100 feet north for the track to run towards Seward.
     Running west towards Tamora, the new track will run south of the existing track.
     To properly build underneath the Highway 15 bridge, workers will have to lower all the utility lines because they are not deep enough. When the second track is finished next year, it will not be centered under the Highway 15 bridge, but Schaefer said the bridge will be taken out when the state expands Highway 15 in the next few years. Until then, "crash walls" will be installed on the piers underneath the bridge in case of a derailment.
     A second bridge will also be installed near the Seward wood disposal site east of Highway 15. Schaefer said the bridge will take three weeks to build and should be completed by the first week of September.
     Schaefer also said less traffic will not be the only benefit for the track. In addition, reparing one of the tracks will be much easier, as the dispatcher could reroute trains to one track while the other is fixed.