Overview
Horner & Shifrin inspected approximately 30 abandoned railroad bridges along the Delta Heritage Trail, which is owned by the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism. The bridges include a 1200-ft long steel truss with lift span over the White River and a 2200-ft long steel truss swing bridge over the Arkansas River. The bridges are through the White River National Wildlife Refuge, which consists of bottom land forest and swamps. Some of the wood trestle approaches are over 2000′ long. The bridges are to be converted to accommodate pedestrian and bicycle traffic as part of the Delta Heritage Trail, which runs 85 miles from Lexa to Rohwer, Arkansas.
Horner & Shifrin also provided UAS (drone) mapping of approximately 35 miles of an abandoned 100′ railway corridor. Drone inspections were used to improve safety due to advanced deterioration of the structures. The inspections used thousands of drone photos that are stitched together to create a virtual model of the bridges. Utilizing processing software such as Pix4D, ESRI, Autodesk, and Virtual Surveyor, the H&S team was able to successfully complete work on multiple trail sections throughout the project.