11 INVESTIGATES: Crumbling railroad bridges raise concerns throughout area

Railroad bridges are cause for concern for many residents who said they're worried they'll be hit by falling concrete.

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"I look up and I pray," said Joyce Hylazewski, who walks near the bridge over Penn Avenue in Wilkinsburg. "I mean, pieces of that overpass are falling down on our heads."

Residents in Beaver County have similar concerns.

"I drive through here every day and I seen that piece of concrete working its way out, and finally I noticed one day it was down," said Dan Parsons, who took pictures of the concrete block that fell from a bridge on Leopard Street in Bridgewater.

The block was 3 feet long, 2 feet wide and 1 foot thick. After seeing it had fallen, Parsons called CSX, who owns the railroad tracks that go over the bridge. The company responded to him in a letter, saying that bridges are inspected in accordance with federal regulations, and because of Parsons' concerns, a follow-up inspection was performed. That letter, however, did not say what that inspection revealed.

Target 11 reached out to CSX, which said that "... the bridge over Leopard Lane in Bridgewater, Pennsylvania, was inspected and found to be in safe condition for railroad operations. The loose concrete that you noted does not have an effect on the bridge's structural integrity."

CSX also noted that prior to the March 2017 inspection, the bridge had previously been inspected in June 2016.

U.S. Sen. Bob Casey, who represents Pennsylvania, has spent years pushing for the Federal Railroad Administration to hire more inspectors. As of April 2017, the FRA had only six inspectors, with one responsible for all of Pennsylvania's 900 bridges.

"We are going to have to keep advocating for it, because that's just not acceptable to have so few safety officials for that many of our railroad bridges," said Casey.

The railroads themselves are required to maintain and inspect their bridges at least once a year, but the reports from those inspections are not available to the public.

One day after Target 11 starting asking questions about the conditions of bridges in Wilkinsburg, Norfolk Southern crews were out removing loose concrete.

Cox Media Group