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They've been working on the railroad, all the livelong day

Workers on a piece of the new bridge at Robert Street

After connecting thick wires to a large slab of concrete, workers jumped off to help steady it as the crane lifted it to the bridge.

After one crew spent last night on equipment that gnawed away the old Needham Line bridge over Robert Street in Roslindale Square, another crew came in this morning to get the new bridge into place and ready for trains on Monday.

The bridge sits just past St. Nectarios Greek Orthodox church:

Bridge next to St. Nectarios

That's some crane lifting a large concrete slab up to the new bridge:

Piece of the bridge going up

Waiting in the wings in the upper parking lot were some supports to hold up the bridge tonight as it's put into its permanent position:

Temporary supports

The work will continue on Sunday.

The new bridge will only carry one set of tracks but is designed to "accommodate future construction of a second track" next to it should the MBTA ever decide to add capacity to the line, the T says.

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Comments

Worth mentioning as a matter of safety and policy, all trains will likely pass over this bridge for a number of days (about a week) at a rather slow speed. This will allow the ballast rock to settle from the weight of the train and then allow the MBTA to check the rails to see of any adjustments are warranted. This is standard procedure when any new track is laid down, or there is a change in support ties or ballast. Since this is at a station I don't think most people will notice much.

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Kudos to the T. They get a lot wrong but really handled this project well from start to finish, especially since it began in the middle of a pandemic. The new bridge looks sharp too.

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That's got to be ghastly hard work in this weather. Hope they're paid well and treated well!

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The folks working on publicly bid projects in MA are to be paid prevailing wages which are pulled from that department specifically for each project. You can rest well knowing they are paid well. Treated well is a different topic not covered under public bidding laws.

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