#WonkWednesday: CA HSR’s Gigantic Puzzle Pieces: Pre-Cast Tub Girders

In this month’s edition of Wonk Wednesday, we visit the Dragados-Flatiron Joint Venture Pre-Cast Tub-Girder Facility, located between Selma and Hanford in California’s Central Valley. This facility manufactures structural elements bigger than the pre-cast concrete girders featured earlier in 2023. The contractor is responsible for 90 of such tub-girders. These gigantic concrete building blocks will help the nation’s first high-speed rail system stay flat and 200 miles-per-hour-fast in the Central Valley. The pieces get catalogued and stored until they can be carefully transported and placed on structures in Construction Package 2-3. Many of the tub-girders are as long as 110 feet and 14 feet wide. They’re being manufactured in the field adjacent to some of the structures that need them, leading to efficiencies. This is just one of several innovative construction methods being employed to build HSR.

Watch a video on pre-cast concrete I beam girders from earlier in 2023 here:    • #WonkWednesday: Concrete Beam Girders...  

Watch a video from 2018, when the Authority was just standing this facility up, here:    • Pre-Cast Facility in Hanford