Militia Drive rail crossing project nears completion

A project to replace a rail crossing in the Algoa area of Jefferson City will likely be complete by next week.

The Jefferson City Council on Monday approved a supplemental agreement to an ongoing economic development project with Cole County.

The agreement, an addendum to an existing contract, allows for the replacement of a rail crossing on Militia Drive; the city and county will share the cost.

The original project was to extend rail service to Morris Packaging, which was part of a development agreement when Morris built the plant several years ago.

The cooperative project is funded by the city and county, as well as Morris Packaging.

The track runs from Command Web across Militia Drive and continues along the south side of Morris Packaging and Alpla. In the future, the spur could be extended across Stertzer Road to serve Scholastic and other businesses in the Algoa area.

As work was being done to extend the rail spur, it was discovered ties under the crossing at Militia Drive were rotting and needed replaced.

County Engineer Eric Landwehr said the crossing will be replaced. Since the county had the original contract with the company, the county will pay the contractor, Railworks Track Services, for the additional $141,000, and then the city will reimburse the county for that amount.

With an earlier change order of $56,744 to pay to replace rotting ties under the crossing, the total cost of the project is now $570,954.

The city ordinance passed Monday also gives responsibility for all inspection services, coordination services necessary between Union Pacific and public notices for road closures to the city.

The City Council unanimously approved the bill, with two council members absent.

City Engineer David Bange said work on the crossing is almost complete. Last weekend, Railworks crews completed the crossing replacement, which included replacing about 80 feet of tracks. The crossing on Militia Drive was closed during this work.

Currently, the city street department is replacing the approach slabs on either side of the crossing, or about 10 feet of concrete that leads to the crossing as part of the street.

Concrete has been laid on the eastern side of the four-lane road, with traffic diverted to one lane for each direction on the west side during the work.

After that concrete has sufficiently dried, traffic will be moved to the west side so the east side can be completed, Bange said.

“Hopefully, by next week, everything will be put back together and the road will be back open completely again,” Bange said.

Future maintenance on the track will be shared between the county and city, with the city responsible for the tracks crossing the road and the county responsible for the rest, Bange said.