SEQUIM — Railroad Bridge will be closed beginning Monday for up to five weeks to allow ramp and redecking work.
The action will close the segment of the Olympic Discovery Trail that travels across the bridge. A detour will be in place.
The bridge across the Dungeness River was reopened to the public on Christmas Eve after the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe replaced a damaged trestle in a $1.53 million project.
The bridge had been closed to the public since last February, when the western trestle was damaged by a flood of the Dungeness River.
Thanks to a $100,000 donation from the First Federal Community Foundation, officials with the Jamestown S’Klallam tribe are able to redo the decking on the bridge and adjoining ramp in Railroad Bridge Park at 2151 W. Hendrickson Road, Sequim.
The often-slippery and weakening wooden deck will be replaced with concrete — mirroring the newly built 750-foot steel trestle that connects to the bridge.
The length of closure will depend upon the weather.
If everything goes smoothly, project managers say, it could be reopened in as little as three weeks, but construction or weather problems could delay reopening by another week or two.
The same detour used during trestle reconstruction will be posted.
The detour route from east to west will leave the trail in Sequim at Fifth Avenue, go north on Fifth to Old Olympic Highway, turn west across the river on the Old Olympic Highway bridge, then south on Heath Road to rejoin the trail.
In preparation to adequately support the anticipated concrete surface, volunteers with the Peninsula Trails Coalition spent about 100 volunteer hours reinforcing the structural integrity of the ramp.
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Olympic Peninsula News Group sources contributed to this report.
