Trona, CA — Railroad Culvert Flow Improved with Hyro-Bell

Mineral Company Relines Damaged Culvert Under Railroad with Snap-Tite®, Improves Flow with Hydro-Bell

The Problem
Road collapse, road closures and traffic delays – these are recurring news headlines attributed to failing culverts across the U.S. Many drainage culverts were installed 40 to 50 years ago and are now past their design life. As such, they are failing at an alarming rate and causing roadway and railway damage. This affects both the public and private industry. One such culvert affected a private enterprise in Trona, California. Searles Valley Minerals was faced with a failing culvert underneath a railroad that delivers supplies to the company’s plant. The damaged culvert was a 72-inch corrugated metal pipe (CMP) that had a length of 120 feet. A failure of the CMP would compromise the structure of the railway and disrupt service of the rail line going into the plant. The company needed a permanent solution that would not disrupt the railway traffic or compromise the flow of drainage through the pipe.
The Solution
Searles Valley Minerals had used Snap-Tite®, a culvert lining system, to reline other damaged culverts affecting entrances into their plant. Since they were happy with the results of using that product, they wanted to use it again for this project. “Six months ago, we were fortunate to run across Snap-Tite’s® approach to renovating CMP culverts. We were faced with repairing approximately 160 linear feet of 84- inch CMP culvert that could not be taken out of service for replacement,” said Peter E. Gray, P.E., engineer with Searles Valley Minerals. “The Snap-Tite® approach made the repair painless.”