Santa Margarita, CA
Did you know that Paragon Bridge Works can also "certify" existing railcar bridges? It is not uncommon for clients to call us who already have an existing railroad flat car set as a bridge on their property but they either want or need to know the vehicular weight rating of the bridge. With our experience, our mobility, and our structural engineers licensed in over 38 states, Paragon can easily provide this information for you.
There are generally a few service choices here:
1: Paragon provides detailed blue prints as well as full calculations by our licensed structural engineers that details how the bridge is built as well as what those findings say the bridge can safely hold. Price for this service ranges between $5,000 to $10,000.
2: Paragon provides a letter of opinion from one of our professional engineers. Paragon will check calculations on the most critical structural elements but not to the degree mentioned above. This is sometimes all a fire department or city/county building department will want to see. Price for this service ranges from $2,500 to $6,000.
In either case, Paragon will send somebody to your site to measure all the critical components on the bridge deck. Client will need to have the dirt removed from at least one end of the bridge in order for us to measure. Paragon CAN NOT make any claims when it comes to existing abutments as we don't know what was used to build the abutments. Such as, what PSI concrete was used, how much and what kind of rebar, and how deep the abutments are.
It usually takes one of Paragon's employees about 6 hours on site crawling around the bridge deck. It then takes an additional 8 hours of computer modeling. That is then given to our engineer to evaluate the data. Total turn around time is anywhere from 3 to 6 weeks.
Paragon can also provide recommendations on how to increase the bridge's weight capacity if it currently does not meet your desired load limit. You can then hire Paragon or anybody else to perform any needed repairs or reinforcements...if they are needed.
It's kind of a neat but little known service that is unique to Paragon Bridge Works.
In this particular case shown below, client built a house on their property but later found out that the local fire department refused to use this bridge until the client could "prove" it would safely accommodate their fire trucks. This would obviously affect the clients home owners insurance policy. So, they contact Paragon Bridge Works and several weeks later their fire department accepted Paragon's letter of opinion. Everything worked out well.
