Tag Archives: Construction Equipment

Skywatch Friday – Williams Crossing Bridge

I was at Tulsa’s Gathering Place Monday evening for a presentation having to do with Monarch Butterflies. After the presentation I wandered over to the nearby Arkansas River to see what I could see.

The Williams Crossing pedestrian bridge was open and all lit up. Just using my old iphone I took a few photos. They are not too bad. This is a view from downstream of the bridge.

And the view from upstream. The lights reflect nicely on Zink Lake.

Across the way, on the downstream side, is Public Service Company of Oklahoma’s Tulsa Power Station. An ancient old plant that is still active. Long time ago I worked for the pipeline company that delivered natural gas to the plant. It was always the last plant to come on during high demand periods and the first to be turned off when electric requirements tailed off.

I went kayaking on the Arkansas River’s Zink Lake last fall and got this photo of the bridge and power plant together.

The Williams Crossing bridge replaced and old railroad bridge that got converted to pedestrian service back in the 1980’s I think. It was a pretty cool structure itself. Here is a photo from before it was demolished to make way for the new bridge.

Pedestrian Bridge-Edit
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I checked on construction on the new bridge pretty frequently. About once a week or every other week depending on the season. Like all construction it seemed to go slow.

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I’d love to learn how to operate the machines.

I just love bridges. What can I say?

Linking with Skywatch Friday

Skywatch Friday – Construction Stuff

I went on on another bike ride the other day on Tulsa’s RiverParks trails along the Arkansas River. I took my Canon Superzoom Camera with me. I stopped again at The Gathering Place to check on the new pedestrian bridge and new dam being constructed. Not much progress so I focused on the construction equipment being used.

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In the bed of the river they had this huge concrete pump putting concrete around boulders on the riverbed. So it looks like in addition to the bridge and dam maybe they are shaping the river for other purposes. I’ll have to check into that.

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There were lots of tracked backhoes at work (I call them track hoes.) This one was actually on the west side of the river doing something not related to the bridge or dam.

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Here are several more on the riverbed. The contractors have constructed a huge cofferdam to divert the river flow to the west side of its banks to make room for construction.

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And another trackhoe

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And yet another. Not too many of them were being operated the day of my ride. I have no idea why. The weather was great.

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And this one had a jackhammer type attachment.

As you can tell, I love construction equipment and checking out construction and trying to figure out what they are doing and how they are going about it.

I’m linking with Skywatch Friday. Come check it out.