[NA] No more 11foot8[NA]

Only raise to 12'-4"? WTF?...most trucks are 13' to the top of the box!

Keep the cameras rollin boys!
 
The mods are now completed. Too bad...those videos are among my guilty pleasures. So many rental trucks bite the dust!
 
Wouldn’t it be easier to lower the road than raise the rail?

Somewhere there is an NCDOT engineer face-palming.

I don't know the storm drainage situation and infrastructure in the area, that is most likely the largest hurdle for lowering the road, might create a huge bird bath everytime it rains. Sanitary sewer might be the next hurdle, but I expect it to be deep enough that it wouldn't be a concern. Water lines and other utilities can be lowered in most situations. The size and impact of the project would be a lot bigger, you can't just lower what's under the bridge.

Edit: I watched some videos. They'd have to lower two streets, at least, definitely some storm drainage that might be difficult to lower if it isn't already deep enough.

Every truck I saw hit the bridge is of a height that can clear the new bridge location. I'd bet the amount of real trucks driven by real professional drivers that have hit that thing is pretty low.
 
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The mods are now completed. Too bad...those videos are among my guilty pleasures. So many rental trucks bite the dust!

Don't delete the link...the modifications are only gonna save a few from the can opener.

I saw the train that housed the crew that did the work leaving the area yesterday...that was a sight...20 bunk cars...50-70 cars total...crazy amounts of machinery...
 
Now that’s a coincidence! Was standing on that very corner yesterday afternoon wondering the same thing! From my completely untrained eye, it would appear that lowering the road would cause some serious drainage issues. It’s already a low area and would likely turn into a pond without extensive regrading of a large area. Maybe raising the track is the least worse of a bunch of bad options. BTW - downtown Durham is a nice place!
 
What kind of surprises me is it’s been this way for a very long time and yet once they finally got around to fixing it it didn’t take that long to fix and it didn’t appear to be a complicated fix. Jack it up and shim.
 
I wonder how many folks tried to sue the city, rail road and the North Carolina DOT.??
 
I didn't understand why they did not built an 11'6" barrier of sorts a hundred feet back. Whack into it & makes enough noise that you stop? Or activates ignore-proof (I know, I know) strobes, folding signs into the road. Perhaps there isn't a clear shot to the bridge; intersections etc.

Hard to believe digging down a foot is such a problem, don't we handle drainage in a zillion other places, often much much worse, on a daily basis?
 
Wouldn’t it be easier to lower the road than raise the rail?

I didn't understand why they did not built an 11'6" barrier of sorts a hundred feet back. Whack into it & makes enough noise that you stop? Or activates ignore-proof (I know, I know) strobes, folding signs into the road. Perhaps there isn't a clear shot to the bridge; intersections etc.

Hard to believe digging down a foot is such a problem, don't we handle drainage in a zillion other places, often much much worse, on a daily basis?

All of these questions, and significantly more, at the 11 foot 8 FAQ http://11foot8.com/faq/
 
Hard to believe digging down a foot is such a problem

''That would be prohibitively expensive because a sewer main runs just a few feet below the road bed. That sewer main also dates back about a hundred years and, again, at the time there were no real standards for minimum clearance for railroad underpasses.''
 
Hard to believe digging down a foot is such a problem, don't we handle drainage in a zillion other places, often much much worse, on a daily basis?
How many road construction projects get done in a week? Digging down a foot would’ve probably required closing the road for the better part of a year.
 
What is/was preventing them from saying "NO TRUCKS" with a $50,000 fine for entering that segment of the street?
 
'That would be prohibitively expensive because a sewer main runs just a few feet below the road bed. That sewer main also dates back about a hundred years

a) I think we have probably found the dough for similar projects in the past where personal or business property was being destroyed on a regular basis, no? The argument of 'it's the driver's fault, while technically correct, does not remedy the fact that there is a constant and unusual loss going on at this. one. location.!

b) the sewer below the road bed, it being there 100 years. Someone would have to explain the impossibility of this to me, as I am sure we have dealt with subsurface plumbing at some time in the past! For pete's sake, we put a man on the moon 50 years ago! A pipe is now in our way? LOL!
 
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