Link-Belt 138 HSL Lifts Bridge Beams for I-69/Purchase Parkway

Interstate 69 is classified by the U.S. Federal Highway Administration as one of America’s six “Corridors of the Future. These “Corridors of the Future” are intended to help reduce traffic congestion and improve the efficiency of freight delivery. The selected corridors carry 22.7 percent of the nation's daily interstate travel. Once completed, I-69’s nearly 1,700 mile route will extend from Port Huron, Michigan through Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Arkansas, and Louisiana to Brownsville, Texas. Several states, including Kentucky are upgrading existing toll roads and parkways to meet the necessary requirements stipulated by the Federal Government for interstate status.  

“We currently have three intersection projects on I-69,” says Rex Smith, president of Jim Smith Contracting. A heavy highway contractor based in Grand Rivers, Kentucky, Jim Smith Contracting recently purchased three new Link-Belt 80-ton (72.5 mt) 138 HSL lattice crawler cranes to keep up with the additional bridge work and road construction underway for the new Interstate 69 project.

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“We actually have five Link-Belt lattice crawlers. Prior experience with our two other 138 HSLs gave us confidence that we were buying the right machines for us. The 138 is the most versatile machine for the type of work that we do, and the volume of work dictated that we have that many machines. So it was really a pretty simple equation,” adds Smith. 

The work Jim Smith Contracting will complete includes setting bridge beams on each side of the interstate at the KY-80/US-45 interchange in Graves County near Mayfield, Kentucky. 

“Most of the work to retrofit this parkway to an interstate standard hinges around the intersections – the bridge clearance, tapers at the ramps, guardrail sections and things of that nature,” says Smith.

Six 102,200 lb. (42 358 kg) beams on each side of the existing parkway replace the previous bridge structure to increase road clearance. Each 138 HSL crane is configured with 90 ft. (27.4 m) of boom with a max boom angle of 77 degrees. 

“As a crane owner, we’re relatively new to owning and doing lifting. We’ve been in the contracting business for near 60 years. In recent years though, through acquisition we’ve diversified into bridge building. We have been actually building bridges for about 10 years. We’ve become partial to this Link-Belt product line,” Smith concludes.