Trains will continue running through Wilson County as workers replace a span over the CSX railroad tracks on U.S. 117 Alternate.

The closure, which reroutes more than 4,200 vehicles daily along a 6 ½-mile detour between Wilson and Black Creek, began Monday.

Justin Evans, a project inspector for the N.C. Department of Transportation, said tearing down the old span will take about three weeks.

“It was built in 1922, and it was remodeled in 1940 to widen it out,” Evans said. “We are actually going to tear it down, demolish it and build a brand-new bridge back.”

Evans said the replacement bridge will probably take a year or longer to construct. The route is currently scheduled to reopen in April 2023.

The detour will take drivers down Frank Price Church Road to Black Creek Road, then back to U.S. 264, exiting onto U.S. 301.

While the new bridge is built, Black Creek firefighters won’t have direct access to some communities in their fire district. Instead of allowing the detour to delay response times, fire officials will dispatch emergency calls in the affected areas to departments in neighboring districts.

“It will affect a small area, which will be covered by mutual aid departments,” said Chief Jeff Collier of the Black Creek Volunteer Fire Department. “That plan has been worked out by the 911 center.”

The closure will cause minor delays on three school bus routes, said Amber Lynch, public information officer for Wilson County Schools.

“The bridge closing will not really affect us because we will just follow the detours,” Lynch said.

The old bridge crosses two parallel railroad tracks that run southwest to northeast just southwest of Wilson.

An average of 35 trains pass along the tracks during a typical 24-hour day, according to CSX, which owns the tracks.

When work is complete, motorists will cross over the tracks on a 191-foot-long bridge with wider shoulders than its predecessor.

Lynchburg, Virginia-based road construction firm W.C. English Inc. won the $3.9 million N.C. Department of Transportation contract to remove the old bridge and build the new one.

Earlier this week, workers installed a silt fence for erosion control and covered the railroad tracks’ ballast stone to protect it from debris.

Amtrak passenger trains and CSX freight trains continued their normal routes, which takes them through the construction site. A CSX flagman sounds a horn as a train approaches to clear workers from the tracks.

“That’s why we have our flagman here,” Evans said. “The trains are going to continue to flow and to travel on the railroad track. We actually have to stop our construction to allow the trains to go through. Any time we are using a crane over a railroad track, we have to stop, swing back and allow the trains to go through.”

Evans said the approaches on either side of the bridge will be wider with flatter slopes.

Some 33,000 cubic yards of dirt will be brought in from a borrow pit on Evansdale Road to fill in the slopes. That’s about 2,900 tri-axle dump truck loads.

Cory Bond of W.C. English Inc. said the company will hire six or seven construction laborers who can handle bridge and concrete work. To apply, call the corporate office at 434-845-0301 and ask for human resources or visit www.englishconstruct.com to apply online.