The West Vancouver Freight Access Project will create a state-of-the-art unit-train facility at the Port of Vancouver. It will also increase capacity for rail freight flowing through the port and along the BNSF and Union Pacific mainlines that connect the Pacific Northwest to major rail hubs in the U.S., Canada and Mexico.

The T-WALL Retaining Wall System units were used back-to-back to form a structure to elevate a railroad siding above grade to allow undisturbed vehicular access to land along the Columbia River in downtown Vancouver. This siding will provide railroad access to the Port with a future capacity of two tracks. In the short term, the structure will provide an alignment for a temporary shoofly for the main line of the BNSF railroad while an existing elevated concrete bridge is demolished and replaced.

The project consists of five T-WALL retaining structures 25-ft. tall supporting the tracks and two new bridges over existing streets. Interestingly, the select backfill used on Phase B was a sand, gravel and volcanic ash material (from the eruption of Mt. St. Helens) dredged from the Toule River. The material made excellent backfill and was free draining.

All parties on the project cooperated and worked together to provide the Port with a quality project that was both on time and on budget.