The Fort Road Widening Project is part of the City of Edmonton’s Yellowhead Trail Freeway Conversion Program- a massive undertaking to improve flow on the interprovincial transportation corridor. This project included widening the corridor from four to six lanes to meet increased traffic volumes along Fort Road- a 24-hour designated truck route in Edmonton.

The complexity existed not in the widening of the road itself, but that the widening had to be executed beneath the operational rail lines and bridge that existed above. The lines, operated by CN, are some of the busiest in Canada, with more than 50 train movements a day over Fort Road. With each approach of a train, all workers must be at least 5 meters from the nearest rail, and any booms or cranes must be immobilized and placed parallel to the tracks.

Because of the busy mainline rail activity, both tracks were expected to remain operational 24/7. Exceptions were made to allow for track tie-in work. And in those instances, only a short-duration rail closure on one of the two lines could be accommodated. PCL, in collaboration with CN, engaged in extensive planning and coordination meetings to secure workplan approvals and maintain schedules throughout the project.    

To build the temporary rail lines across Fort Road, a support structure was required. Temporary box culverts were originally specified to be precast concrete. During the tender period, our team completed constructability reviews, risk assessments and developed a cast-in-place box culvert value engineering alternate. PCL provided the value alternative which was accepted by the City and ultimately led to significant savings.

The cast-in-place box culverts, which we proposed, had a much smaller footprint. That was significant on a number of fronts: Firstly, workers and equipment now had a pathway to access the bridge widening work without crossing the CN mainline. This was a considerable efficiency enhancement and improved safety for those on site. The cast-in-place box culvert approach also mitigated an underground utility conflict with the existing combined sewer.

To support the temporary shoofly, PCL installed lock block retaining walls, which were engineered to carry the loads from the railcars above the shoofly.The shoofly’s cast-in-place box culverts and lock block retaining walls were survey monitored and performed as designed without incident. 

The innovative solution proved to be a first in Alberta. For the first time, cast-in-place box culverts and a lock-block retaining wall were used to temporarily support a mainline rail crossing.

Fort Road opened to the public on schedule in October 2023. Throughout the three-year project, there was zero disruption to rail traffic on the mainline, ensuring the scheduled movement of freight to and from CN’s west coast terminal.

Total volume of concrete = 1091 m³       

Total weight of reinforcing steel= 200 Tonnes

Expected traffic volume= 35,000 vehicles/weekday