Runaway barge hits Eads Bridge Wednesday in St. Louis, pausing MetroLink trains

Apr 03, 2024

Workers stand below the Eads Bridge on Wednesday, May 24, 2023, after a barge struck the bridge around noon, shutting down MetroLink train operations on the bridge, between the Civic Center and Fifth and Missouri stations.

ST. LOUIS — A runaway barge slammed into the historic Eads Bridge Wednesday morning in St. Louis, prompting MetroLink to suspend several hours of its passenger train service over the structure as a precaution, while teams checked on its safety.

After enlisting the help of a drone, climbing crews and “several teams” to inspect the bridge, officials said it remained in fine shape, and MetroLink operations resumed late in the afternoon, following a test run.

“Unfortunately this happens and we have established procedures,” said Taulby Roach, the CEO of Bi-State Development, the agency that oversees Metro Transit. “Of course, we apologize to the public for the inconvenience. ... (But) we will always take extra precaution.”

The collision happened around 11 a.m., after a barge came loose upstream and hit one of the bridge’s support piers on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River channel.

The loose barge was owned by Ingram Barge Co., and drifted about 2 miles downriver, according to a spokesman for the local division of the U.S. Coast Guard.

It was eventually corralled and then safely moored on the Illinois side of the river — but not before sustaining a one-foot gash in its collision with the bridge, Roach said. The barge was carrying fly ash, he added — a byproduct from sources such as coal-fired power plants and a commonly shipped commodity on the Mississippi.

Because the barge was laden with material, Roach said it sat low in the water and packed more of a punch.

“The strike was a little heavier,” he said. “Often times it’s just a glancing blow.”

Completed in 1874, the Eads Bridge is the oldest standing bridge on the Mississippi and was St. Louis’ first structure spanning the waterway. It is considered an engineering marvel, as the world’s first steel truss bridge.

Vehicle traffic over the bridge is managed by the city of St. Louis and was not disrupted Wednesday, Roach said.

Although the bridge passed its post-collision inspection, Roach said experts would take an additional look when the river level drops and reveals the point of impact with the barge, which happened below the water’s surface.

Bridge collisions in St. Louis are not unheard of. Past major floods, for instance, have ripped boats from moorings and slammed them into bridges crossing the Mississippi. And tragedy struck at the Eads Bridge in 2015, when a towboat hit scaffolding on the structure and caused a worker to fall to his death.

“It is not unusual for us to have at least one incident a year where we have to perform an inspection,” Roach said. “In this case, we took an extra step because of the severity of the impact.”

See the historic water intake towers that sit on the Mississippi River near the Old Chain of Rocks Bridge from a drone's point of view.

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