Napa Valley
Flood Control Projects
Napa Valley Wine Train Relocation
The $79M Napa Valley Wine Train (NVWT) heavy civil project was located in downtown Napa, CA. The project involved the excavation and embankment of on-site material as part of the Napa River Flood Control Project. Ultimately, the new channel allows the U.S. Army Core of Engineers (USACE to) divert the Napa River flow during storm events.
This was an extremely complex project requiring planning that involved SUU, USACE, and the Town of Napa as well.
The project required coordination of 53 subcontractors and many neighboring businesses.
The project required work ranging from 35,000 cubic yards of excavation in town to removing and replacing active train tracks along with three new railroad bridges.
ELEMENTS:
- Excavation
- Track Bed Construction
- Water Main Replacement
- Sewer
- Storm Drain
- Grading Streets
- Traffic Control
- Project Management
The project encountered numerous challenges driven by the discovery of unknown conditions after city streets were excavated. Approximately 65% of the original plan sheets had to be redesigned prior to receiving approval by USACE. SUU effectively developed a new plan to reduce street closures from 22 weeks to 9 weeks and created plans to convert an originally designed bored culvert placement to a dig and lay multiple culvert system. This reduced cost, allowed for larger culvert capacity, and avoided installing two additional access points to the Napa Wine Train station.
This also separated contract work from the Napa Wine Train and was completed at no cost to USACE. During the project, USACE altered the physical size of the project and the required work over and adjacent to the Napa River, thereby increasing the SWPPP level from 1 to a level 2. SUU worked directly with USACE’s environmental division to ensure the most cost-effective transition that eliminated schedule impacts.
This three-year project(1,100 days) was completed without a single OSHA recordable or lost time accident.
Major Scope Items:
- 35,000 CY of excavation from new rail alignment and cofferdam locations. Excavation was either hauled off site or moved directly to areas requiring embankment.
- 20,000 CY of import borrow hauled in from a commercial source.
- Construction of two on-grade bridges, and one bridge over the Napa River
- Removal of existing and reconstruction of 3,300 LF of new rail line.