At the intersection of Gregson Street and Peabody Street in Durham, North Carolina stands a 79-year-old railroad trestle that the North Carolina Railroad Company leases out to Amtrak and Norfolk Southern Railway. It’s formally known as the Norfolk Southern-Gregson Street Overpass, but the bridge has another nickname: the Canopener, thanks to the actions that happen to tall vehicles operated by drivers that can’t read big yellow signs that warn them of the bridge’s 11 foot, eight inch clearance space, or the big freaking sign warning them of the potential issues, or even the traffic lights that has an illuminated sign warning them of the low bridge.
Unfortunately for drivers everywhere who do pay attention, and do the right thing, the Canopener is being raised eight inches to 12 foot, four inches in height, the maximum that it can be raised without being forced to reroute the rail line or to create another bridge. It’s taken tons upon tons of trucks removing their roofs the hard way, RVs scraping their air conditioning systems off on the truck-eating bridge, and hordes of embarassed drivers responsible for damages to rental vehicles for the move to take place, which will take place between October 23 and November 5, 2019.
Fun fact: North Carolina allows trucks as tall as 13 foot, six inches. Don’t worry, the footage will probably continue on like normal.
Better licensing requirements. I’ll say it until I’m blue in the face.
(Courtesy: Autoblog)
Probably cheaper to lower the road.
That’s what I was thinking.
Drainage problems if they lower the road. Big ones! I for one am sorry to see this happen. I agree better licensing requirements are called for, across the board.
(Do you always use YOUR turn signals?) But particularly with Class A drivers. It should include more than just filling out log books, weight transfer training, and becoming proficient enough to match a trained monkey’s skills. It should instill a sense of pride and purpose in operating these machines professionally. Unfortunately, today, we have some real dreggs of society driving big rigs.
As a class A CDL driver I suggest we go the other way. Go back to 1991 when the CDL did not exist. Let the market sort it out.
Kind of enjoyed the “village idiot” videos…must be those damned Democrats and their “nanny state”. JOKING 🙂
If licensing reflected (and was truly about) driving skills, rather than revenue, the bridge’d be far less a problem.
But that isn’t, and therefor it isn’t.
I see this bridge a lot. There’s some interesting artwork that comes when the aluminum that is scraped off the tops of trailers gets wadded up into little coils. Think of those wispy wood curls that come off of a very sharp block plane, only aluminum and much thicker