BNSF Protect in Place Project

At the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s Rail Material Depot near Kimberlina, between Wasco and Delano, LASAR performed protect-in-place work for existing underground infrastructure located within a BNSF crossing. The work had to be completed inside a rail-controlled environment, with existing utilities remaining in place and undamaged while construction continued around them.

The shoring requirements drove the means and methods. Work inside the BNSF right-of-way and within 15 feet of track centerline required engineered shoring designed for Cooper E80 loading, the railroad live-load standard used to account for heavy freight surcharge conditions. In practical terms, the excavation support system had to be designed and installed to protect the track structure, the underground facilities, and the crews working below.

To complete the work, LASAR mobilized a specialty piling rig equipped with a variable-moment vibratory hammer and predrilling capability. The variable-moment hammer allowed controlled startup and shutdown during pile installation, reducing vibration impacts near sensitive underground utilities and active rail infrastructure.

California Middle-Mile Broadband Initiative

Most of our middle-mile work has run the spine of the Central Valley, from Salida down to Fresno. Rural stretches where the route ducks under farm roads and irrigation canals. Urban segments where it threads between gas, water, sewer, and existing telecom in dense corridors. Public right-of-way one mile, private easement the next. The work that turns a corridor of fiber into a network reaching homes, businesses, and institutions across California.

What we self-perform on these builds runs the full OSP civil scope. Open-cut trench and direct-buried conduit. HDD for road crossings, canal crossings, and any zone where surface disruption isn’t an option. Handhole, manhole, vault, and splice point placement with grade adjustments. Vacuum and hydro excavation to daylight existing utilities before we go in. Buried service drops at production volume, around 500 a month. Class C-31 traffic control under our own license, plus the multi-jurisdictional permitting that comes with crossing a city, a county, and Caltrans right-of-way inside the same week.

California High-Speed Rail, Utility Relocation Fresno to Bakersfield

On California High-Speed Rail Construction Package 2-3, LASAR performed telecom and fiber utility relocations across the Fresno-to-Bakersfield alignment through Fresno, Kings, and Tulare counties. What began as a single AT&T relocation at Elkhorn and Clovis Avenues grew into eight named relocation segments involving AT&T, Frontier, and CVIN infrastructure.

The corridor crossed a part of the Central Valley already full of underground and overhead utility conflicts. Copper, fiber, irrigation crossings, county roads, rail facilities, poles, anchors, and existing easements all had to be dealt with before the new rail alignment could move forward. LASAR used the method each segment required: open-cut conduit duct banks where the route was clear, jack-and-bore installations with steel casing where utilities crossed the high-speed rail right-of-way, and horizontal directional drilling where open excavation was not practical.

The work spread across three counties and required coordination with utility owners, county public works departments, rail authorities, state agencies, and local irrigation districts. LASAR pulled the road encroachment permits under its own A-license and held the Cal-OSHA T1 trenching permit covering the work.