Employees at Tigard-based Fought & Co. are nearing completion of fabricating 64 steel girders for Portland, Ore.-based TriMet’s Portland-Milwaukie light rail transit project. The girders will support the project’s harbor structure decking that will carry the light rail over and under several roadways in South Waterfront.

About the Harbor Structure:

•    Longest structure along the 7.3-mile alignment at 1,730 feet (about 1/3rd mile) between east side of Naito Parkway to SW Moody Avenue in South Waterfront.

•    Girders use plates up to three inches thick, 96 inches wide and 70 feet long.

•    Completed sections will be up to 150 feet long and weigh up to 46 tons.

•    One hundred percent recycled steel domestically produced in Delaware.

•    $5.3 million contract completed over eight months by 40 employees working two shifts at Fought & Co.
 “The structure is complicated because it crosses a number of streets and tracks which limits construction and staging access," said Fought & Co. President Rex Smith. "Most overpass projects take about 500 tons of steel — that’s only one quarter of the span of the Harbor Structure.”

Smith added that the project also kept people on the job. “In this market, we never know when the next job will come along. The TriMet project allowed us to keep 30 people employed for another eight months, saving nearly one-fourth of our staff from layoffs,” he said.

The girders will be delivered in three phases over a 10-week period, with one girder being delivered per truck.

The project is creating up to 14,500 direct and indirect jobs. As of June 10, 2012, the project has generated 1,635 direct jobs and contracted with 230 companies.

The 7.3-mile project is the region’s sixth MAX construction project to be built and extends from the terminus of the MAX Green and Yellow lines at Portland State University in Downtown Portland to South Waterfront, SE Portland, Milwaukie and North Clackamas County.

The project will feature 10 stations, expands the MAX system to 60 miles and 97 stations and is expected to open in September, 2015.