Kinder Morgan

Project Highlights / Scope of Work

• Stabilization of the area surrounding the railroad tracks
• Piping repairs at two different locations leading to the terminal 
• Four stages including construction of work surface, sheeting installation, tieback installation and restoration

Project Description

Railroad Construction Co. has completed a project to stabilize the area surrounding the railroad tracks at the Kinder Morgan Linden Terminal facility.  Kinder Morgan is the largest energy infrastructure company in the nation with 84,000 miles of pipelines which transport natural gas, gasoline, crude oil, carbon dioxide (CO₂) and more.  Repairs to the piping at two different locations leading to the terminal made it necessary to brace and support the adjacent Conrail tracks.  This $1.3 million project was performed on a tight deadline of only five months.

The work was done in four stages:  construction of the work surface, sheeting installation, tieback installation and restoration.  First, a suitable work area needed to be constructed at each site including DGA ramps and riprap (stone) pads.  Then excavation was performed and 50 LF of sheeting was driven to a depth of 30’.  Holes were drilled and a total of twenty-two tiebacks (horizontal rods) were inserted and grouted to reinforce and stabilize the areas near the railroad tracks.  Walers were installed and adjusted over the tiebacks, the piping was repaired (by others) and finally the sites were restored to original conditions.

The project held several major challenges.  The sites had limited access (only by rail in most cases) and no onsite storage areas.  A staging / storage area was set up at the nearby CITGO property and most of the equipment and materials were transported to the worksites by rail (although some materials had to be brought in by hand).  In addition, Conrail could only guarantee two days of outages per week so the schedule had to be completely revamped.  Another unforeseen problem arose after Labor Day when the tides from the nearby Raritan River shifted, flooding the sites.  Again the schedule was revised from that point forward to work only during low tide.  Even with all these issues, the job was completed on time and Kinder Morgan was able to finish their repairs before their winter deadline.

Special thanks go to the people at CITGO who were extremely accommodating in allowing us access to their facility for storage and staging.  Additional thanks to all those who assisted on the job:  Mike Hoover of River Consulting, Jason Sluzynski of Kinder Morgan, Yaser Taheri and Wayne Fjotland of Moretrench and David Reilly of Conrail.