It has been a year since the washout at Estates Drive occurred and I revisited the site during the recent rains to see how well the repair has been performing.
This is what it looked like just before the earth below the tracks washed away one year ago today. The water was at least 30 feet deep.
The culvert size appears to be able to handle the expected flow of water, but large debris could easily block the intake creating another washout. Debris removal is critical to maintaining the function of this culvert.
While there I noticed where two outside rails meet on a curve above the culvert and the angle bars are only connected with two bolts instead of four. Does anyone know why the two center bolts were left out? There are also numbered tags welded to each end of the outside angle bar. The welded tag on the right is stamped 132 and the welded tag on the left is stamped 136. Are these special angle bars that allow the connection of 132 and 136 weight rails? When connecting rail of different weights do you leave the two center bolts out?
I went back and looked at my photo archive and I see these tags were there nine months ago along with the bolts missing.