DenverInfill Blog

As I mentioned in previous updates (most recently in Update #7), the bus box hole will eventually be about twice as deep as it is now.  To accomplish it, bulldozers will push dirt into a hopper and conveyors will transport it to the surface where it will be stockpiled for later use as backfill.

One of the first steps in that process happened this afternoon with the placement of part of the conveyor system into the bottom of the hole.  The photo below shows three conveyor parts in the hole and two more awaiting the crane.

For more photos, please see our Denver Union Station page at JobSiteVistor.com.

Now that the bus box hole has reached its ultimate width, Kiewit’s excavation of the bus box will likely move toward Union Station. In Update #3 on March 30, I mentioned that water and sewer lines have been temporarily rerouted from under the west side of Wewatta Street to the east side. Now, notice in the photo below the top 2-3 feet of vertical i-beams (painted orange) sticking out of the ground. They will support another shoring wall which is being placed along what was the middle of Wewatta Street, between the new and old water and sewer lines. Once the wall is built, the old lines will be removed in preparation for continuation of the bus box excavation up to the shoring wall. Also notice the i-beam laying on the ground waiting to be dropped into one of the drilled holes by the crane in the center of the photo. The drill rig is to the right. By the way, the bicycle that appears to be hanging on the side of the drill rig mast is actually on a bike rack at the light rail station across Wewatta Street.

Removal of seldom-used tracks from behind Union Station has begun. The tracks are between those used by Amtrak and those used by the light rail. Over the past few years, those tracks have been used for parking by various trains and cars, such as the Ski Train, Union Pacific’s historic steam train (locomotive 844), and newly manufactured cars for the Alaska Railroad. A private train parked on one set of those tracks during the Democratic National Convention in 2008. According to neighborhood gossip, the Secret Service was housed in that train. Here’s a photo of the removal activity this afternoon.  You can see piles of railroad ties and rail hardware such as spikes, etc.  As I approached the site, a flatbed tractor trailer pulled away with a load of rails.

Please see our Denver Union Station page at JobSiteVistor.com for more photos.