Southern Railway of B.C. says the rail bridge between Queensborough and downtown New Westminster could be open again in a matter of weeks.
Frank Butzelaar, president of the company, said engineers have been able to assess the damage caused in last Tuesday's collision between a gravel barge and the swing span bridge, and work on the repairs has already begun.
"We got down there and we did find a little bit more damage than we had originally hoped to find but everything's repairable. It's just going to take a little bit longer," he said. "Where we thought we were a couple of days away, I think we're now a couple weeks away."
Butzelaar said the bridge will need repairs to the protection pier and swing span mechanism.
Southern Railway has contracted some of the repair work to New Westminster's Fraser River Pile and Dredge, which has barged in a crane to lift the span.
"It could have been a whole lot worse and the good news is that we know we've got very good contractors here locally, just down the river. It's about as good a scenario as you could hope for in a situation that's not very good," Butzelaar said.
He said the full cost of repairs won't be known until work is done.
Mercury Launch and Tug, the company that owns the barge involved in the collision, removed the gravel barge lodged on the protection pier on Sunday night.
In the meantime, Southern Railway has been able to service some of its 30 customers that rely on the bridge, most on Annacis Island, with trucking, barging and using other rail lines to the island owned by Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway and CN Rail. Butzelaar said it hasn't been easy process to adapt to so quickly.
"It's very circuitous. It's very expensive. It's somewhat limited in terms of what capacity we handle but at least what it enables us to do is handle traffic on a priority basis. All the traffic where people are really in a dire situation, where they absolutely need a car by a certain time, we can at least accommodate them that way," Butzelaar said.
Canada's Transportation Safety Board and Transport Canada are investigating the crash, looking for the cause and contributing factors.
