COOPERATIVE VENTURE

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Tug slammed into bridge

The “Cooperative Venture”, 693 gt(MMSI: 366984850), pulling a line of barges smashed into the Pig’s Eye Railroad Bridge in St. Paul in the morning of Oct 26, 2017, knocking its central support structure off-kilter and causing an estimated $500,000 in damages. The southbound vessel struck the swing bridge’s center support structure, causing the pier to split from the bridge’s truss. The bridge over the Mississippi River near the city’s impound lot, southeast of the Holman Field airport was hit while the tug was pulling several barges with dry goods, but nothing was spilled. The Coast Guard upper Mississippi River sector office investigated the crash. The bridge — owned by Union Pacific railroad — could take some time to fix. The railroad will most likely be inoperable for quite a while, maybe more than a year. Union Pacific officials expected it to be only 30 days to be operable. The work should be done in a month. The railroad was experiencing delays rerouting traffic from the line, which links with others that connect from Canada all the way to Mexico. The ship traffic at the bridge’s junction will be down to one span for both directions until the repair is complete. The incident remained under investigation in cooperation with the National Transportation Safety Board.