Repairs coming to Terra Nova T'Railway bridge, but not before summer

The provincial governmentis giving the Newfoundland T'Railway Council a chunk of money to help fix itsTerra Nova bridge,but it's not enough to cover the full cost, meaning the bridge will remain closed for the near futureand the cross-island trail system is still disrupted.

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TheNewfoundland and Labrador government has budgeted $530,000 towards repairs as well as other engineering work for other T'Railway bridges, but the full cost to fix the Terra Nova bridgeis about $700,000.

"I'm pretty confident that we're going to be able to find the rest of the funds that we need to repair this bridge," Jamie Warren, the president of the T'Railway Council board of directors, told CBC Radio's Central Morning Show.

Warren said that financing work will begin immediately, but there's little possibility it would be in place before the fall, when a tender could then be issued.

No summer use

No one has been able to use the bridge since November2015, when engineering work condemned it.

"The bridge is barricaded now for the summer, and it will stay that way, as it's deemed unsafe for travel by anybody," said Warren.

The bridge is an important piece of tourism infrastructure.- Jamie Warren

That means anyone usingthe more than 800-kilometreT'Railway, whichcrosses the entire island and forms a part of the Trans Canada Trail, has to detour off the route.

"It's unfortunate," said Warren, adding the trail is a major attraction in the summer.

"The bridge is an important piece of tourism infrastructure. Alot of people use it back and forth. A lot of businesses [derive]income from it, from B&Bs and ATVs."

Warren said people looking for more information about the detour routes can contact theT'Railway office in Gander.

Spotting potential problems

Warren said at the same time as the T'RailwayCouncil raises the money to repair the bridge, it will also be using some of the provincial funds to inspect other bridges along its route.

"This is the really important part for us," he said.

"Because we now can get ahead of where our potential problems are, before we run into a scenario like Terra Nova and we shut the bridge down."

Warren said the last time the council was able to inspect bridges carefully was about 15 years ago.

"Ifwe can do some underwater camera work, some engineering assessments and find out what some of these states of bridges are, we can deal with them earlier before we end up shutting it down, and then having a summer where you can't use it," he said.