More cameras to focus on river tourists

Published 12:27 pm Thursday, May 13, 2010

Two more cameras will survey areas around the old U.S. 80 bridge across the Mississippi River to prevent tourists from finding their way onto the bridge’s rail tracks.

Vicksburg Bridge Commission members OK’d spending $1,590 to purchase the electronic eyes from Ridgeland-based Access Technology Group. The cameras have been instrumental in bridge officials’ views of the river near the bridge and aiding reconstruction of barge strikes to the bridge’s piers.

Superintendent Herman Smith said tourists visiting the Mississippi Welcome Center occasionally traipse onto the railroad tracks below — including one instance in the past month in which a man was taking pictures of an approaching train. Though the property below the county-owned bridge is public right of way, Smith said the cameras will alert the bridge office if anyone is on the rails, so they can be told to move.

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In other business Wednesday, the commission said it still is waiting for design plans on two sets of repairs deemed emergencies since March. One involves a cracked floor beam and corroded cover plate above pier 5. A windshear device inside the pier has been the lone stabilizer of the pier, as the plate has rusted away, Smith said. The other work will re-anchor a section of rail track above five short piers on the Louisiana side, where bolts have rusted or have fallen out.

Toll money from Kansas City Southern Railway totaled $93,992 for March’s rail traffic, which was 23,498 cars. The increase in the rate paid — $4 per car versus $3.75 for much of the past year — and an increase reported to the commission in April’s traffic, at 24,207 cars, coincided with news of the company’s 26 percent rise in profits for the first quarter compared to last year and a 2 percent gain in volume for the quarter.