The Ft. Lauderdale/Hollywood airport runway extension project in Broward County Florida is under way and the Florida East Coast Railway (FEC) will be operating two 80-car unit trains every day, to and from the construction site as the existing runway is extended, widened and raised. FEC will move in excess of 15,000 tons (30 million lbs.) a day of aggregate for extension of the elevated runway over U.S. 1 and the FEC mainline.
The FEC logistics solution starts with loading the rail cars at the Medley quarries near Miami then transporting the load directly to the airport site via FEC trains where the material is loaded onto Odebrecht Central JV (the general contractor) trucks at the job site. The solution avoids public streets and highways.
In order to handle the material at the job site, a rail spur was needed. Construction started July 2nd and the first unit train rolled into place on July 23rd.
The FEC and its contractors, Gulfstream Engineering and Gonzales and Sons installed 8,000 feet of track with over 3,000 steel ties, using lime stone and granite ballast, with 136 pound welded rail. They connected to the mainline in record time, the company said.
Jim Hertwig president and CEO of the Florida East Coast Railway said “3.5 million tons of rock equates to over 375,000 truck loads and empties running back and forth on area highways between Miami and Ft. Lauderdale. Our goal is to help alleviate congestion in that area. We invested in the track and the unit train operation in order to do our part to address congestion and reduce emissions during the airport runway construction.”