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PLYMOUTH – The bridge on West Broadway/Baseline Road won’t reopen any time soon.
The bridge, located west of the village square near the intersection of New Street/Railroad Street, is part of a public road but is privately owned by Ashland Railway, which has tracks running underneath. Ashland Railway closed the bridge about a month back due to safety concerns.
Plymouth Mayor Cassaundra Fryman said the situation is at a “standstill” because Ashland Railway can’t afford to do the necessary work.
“The infrastructure of (the bridge) needs completely replaced,” she said. “The railroad told us it’d be about $2 million.”
Fryman said village officials are doing everything they can to cooperate with Ashland Railway to find a solution.
“I know (Ashland Railway employees) are working on it; they’re not just idly ignoring it,” she said.
Nevertheless, she characterized the situation as “disappointing.”
“We’ve made it very clear that this is a huge problem, this needs to be a priority for (Ashland Railway),” she said. “It’s a major artery through our community and this needs to be resolved as quickly as possible.”
Huron County Engineer Lee Tansey said even though the bridge is privately-owned, his office inspects it annually since it’s located on a public road. Tansey said Ashland Railway also does annual inspections.
In 2019, the Huron County Engineer’s office hired a third party to do a more in-depth inspection and generate a report, which Tansey said was shared with Ashland Railway.
Tansey told Richland Source said he wanted a more detailed inspection because the department “didn’t believe Ashland Railway had the public’s best interests at heart.”
According to Tansey, the analysis found that the bridge could no longer support fully loaded semi-trucks. Ashland Railway posted a sign notifying drivers.
Richland Source obtained a copy of the report from the engineer’s office. The analysis by Richland Engineering Limited (now part of WallacePancher Group) estimated 70 percent steel loss to the corrugated metal deck of the bridge.
HUR-Baseline Road Wood Bridge Evaluation Study.pdf
“The corrugated metal deck is in poor condition and we recommended that the deck be replaced this year for safety purposes,” the February 2019 report said.
Based on that report, Tansey believes Ashland Railway had sufficient notice that the bridge would eventually need repairs.
“They should have at least been planning for a rehabilitation or replacement,” he said.
Representatives from Ashland Railway were tight-lipped on the matter. In response to a series of emailed questions and multiple phone calls, general manager Matt Smith sent a one-sentence response to Richland Source.
“We are working closely with state and local officials to come up with a resolution to the bridge closure in Plymouth,” he wrote.
Fryman confirmed there have been conversations with state officials on possible funding streams, but said most funding available for railroads is federal.
“Ultimately we’re at the mercy of the railroad as well as the federal government because that’s who most railroad funding goes through,” she said.
Fryman added there will be a meeting next month with state representatives, the Ohio Department of Transportation and the railroad to look for solutions.
She said the village does not have the funds to pay for the bridge repair, or even to make a significant contribution to the work, without going into debt.
“There is talk of (Ashland Railway) trying to give us possession of the bridge, but I’m not inclined to do that either because then we’d have to repair it every time it goes down,” she said.
“It would eat into our budget in such a damaging way, I don’t think that’s a route that we can really look at either.”
She also said that even if the money were available today, the timeline for replacing the bridge would likely be one to two years.
“This isn’t something that could be fixed overnight, even if I had the money in hand.”
