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Part One: 24 hours on T-REX

The job is dawn-to-dawn every day, 24 hours of hard and often hazardous labor choreographed into a complex movement of earth, concrete and steel.

Evan Semon © Special to the News Jake Allen, 34, of Salt Lake City, works on setting beams for a section of elevated rail line along southbound Interstate 25 as the moons shines behind him. The men and women building T-REX lend their skills to an amazing number of tasks, from small to Herculean. All photography »

From nicely dressed folks in office cubicles to blue-shirted operators of 40-ton machinery to overall-clad grunts out on the asphalt with shovels and brooms, the daily work consists of tens of thousands of individual tasks.

ONLINE EXTRAS T-REX by the numbers » More photos on T-REX » A map of construction »

That effort has pushed the $1.72 billion T-REX project - the reshaping of the southeast corridor with new highway lanes and light rail along Interstates 25 and 225 - halfway to its planned 2006 conclusion.

Rocky Mountain News reporters and photographers set out to capture one 24-hour cycle on the project, and Sept. 4, a warm, late summer day, proved perfect to begin the task.

From before sunrise Thursday until the same time Friday, life on I-25 and I-225 was a 1,700-worker chorus, a clamor of motors, shouts, orders, meetings, hammerings and screeching tires - all for the benefit of the quarter-million drivers who passed through that day and the countless others to follow.

6 a.m. Thursday, Sept. 4.

Ben Carnazzo already has been on the job at the Evans Avenue field office for an hour.

Just 13 more to go.

The 38-year-old sighs as he looks at his e-mail in-box. As the Broadway to Hampden Avenue segment manager for Southeast Corridor Constructors, or SECC, he answers at least 50 or 60 queries a day, by e-mail, phone or in person.

"People walk through the front door every day, wanting me to solve their problems," Carnazzo says. "Everyone's personal problem is on the top of their list, so they think it should be on top of mine."

Sometimes the public makes some pretty odd requests.

"A guy came in here one day saying his apartment near the highway had been shot at, so he wanted me to raise the sound walls so he wouldn't get shot," the amiable former Nebraskan says. "I suggested that he talk to the police."

Today, like every Thursday, Carnazzo will meet with T-REX and Southeast Corridor Constructors managers at 9 a.m. to discuss progress and problems.

One of the morning's first problems: an accident with an attenuator truck, which construction workers call their last line of defense against the driving public.

The truck has directional arrows that warn drivers to switch lanes and accordion-like cushions on the back that fold up when hit from behind, which they often are.

This truck somehow got hit on its side, in the fuel tank. "I have no idea how they managed that," says Allen Amis, 39, who manages the Southeast Corridor Constructors maintenance shop on East Evans Avenue. "Definitely a major safety concern for our crews is the public."

Todd Heisler © News The sun rises behind the light-rail extension at Broadway and I-25. Building the new light-rail track is no easy task. The poles that will carry the overhead electrical system must be anchored 13 feet into the ground, in precisely the right spot. When complete, the system will include to a sparkling new $40 million home for the light-rail fleet. All photography »

Todd Heisler © News T-REX incident manager Luke Connelley, 24, kisses his wife, Dondi, as he leaves for work about 6 a.m. Connelley drives the T-REX route, helping motorists and pedestrians, and looking for any signs of trouble, such as signs that need to be updated. All photography »

6 a.m.

As the sun starts to chin itself over the horizon, T-REX incident manager Luke Connelley, 24, kisses his pregnant wife, Dondi, and heads out. His day starts now and never really ends. Trouble along the T-REX route finds him around the clock.

Between incidents, he cruises the site for anything out of the ordinary.

"Every once in a while, you get somebody walking up the highway. I picked a guy up by Dave & Buster's walking in the fast lane," Connelley says. "A couple of weeks ago, there was an itty-bitty fender bender. I asked the cop about it, and he said two guys got out of one car and beat up the guy in the other car."

6 a.m.

Tim Mackin grabs his coffee mug and hits the back roads, wending his way from his home south of Parker to his office near Syracuse and I-25.

As Kiewit's construction manager for the light-rail project, Mackin monitors work progress, deadlines and station construction. Days are long and moves are frequent: no telling when he'll have to pack up and head to another project where Omaha-based Kiewit Construction, the construction partner in Southeast Corridor Constructors, needs him more.

The project design partner is the Denver office of Parsons Transportation Group.

"It's not a profession for everyone," says Mackin, a civil engineer who's worked construction since high school. "But I'm not sure what else I'd do."

At work at last, he walks past dozens of charts that show the various stages of the light-rail project. His office, which practically sits on top of I-25, will eventually be torn down to make way for the rail.

He skims his e-mail then grabs the multicolored coffee cup his youngest daughter made for him when she was 4. It's decorated with the initials "D.T."

"I think that's for Dad Tim," Mackin says. "The great thing about it is, nobody will steal it."

6:58 a.m.

"Mornings are usually on the slow side. Friday afternoon we get a lot of wrecks," says Rob Charlton, who is behind the wheel of one of three courtesy patrol trucks that roam T-REX during rush hour. They responded to 750 incidents in August - flat tires, empty gas tanks, disabled vehicles - all free of charge to motorists.

Half an hour later, he pulls up behind a fender bender, actually a fender scratcher, on southbound I-225 south of Parker Road.

Larry Rossman's red Taurus was bumped from behind by a Toyota pickup. Rossman, who lives in Eaton, doesn't drive the T-REX route often.

"If I drove it every day, I'd have an older car," Rossman says. "Or a tank."

7:03 a.m.

Traffic headed north on I-25 from Arapahoe Road is moving at 50 mph in a solid pack. A woman in a white SUV blows past traffic in the car-pool lane - with no passengers.

7:10 a.m.

Jim Bodi, survey manager for the project, meets with some of his workers at the Belleview Avenue field office, a warren of modular units set up in a dirt lot just west of I-25 on Quebec Street.

Brad Lingbeck, survey coordinator for Segments 2.1 and 2.2 - Hampden to Belleview and up I-225 to DTC Boulevard - lays out the morning's work. Graders are putting down rock ballast for the light-rail track ties and the surveyors' marks will guide the blade of the grading tractor by computer.

Lingbeck laughs when asked about quitting time. "We've been pretty lucky," he says. "We've been putting in 55 hours a week. Yesterday, I didn't eat lunch."

Thirty surveyors are on the project, with another surveyor acting as an auditor to double-check the work.

"It's all got to fit together in the end," Lingbeck says.

7:30 a.m.

So who's driving the pink pickup with the eight ball painted on the door? The truck is assigned to workers who have accidents or other safety violations, a highly-visible symbol.

But no one wants to reveal who's the Mary Kay of the week. "I've not had it yet," Lingbeck says. "But not for a lack of the driving public trying to put me in it."

7:48 a.m.

Survey crew foreman Brandon Knight takes readings off the RTK - Real Time Kinematic - Rover survey instrument. Its display shows the relative positions of nine satellites in the sky that are providing elevation and location information along the track.

"The more spread out the satellites are, the better precision you will get," Knight says. "One nice thing about working with this company is that we get the latest equipment."

If you have a smooth ride on the light rail over the Belleview bridge after it opens in late 2006, you can thank these guys for making sure the tops of the rails were built at the right elevations.

8:25 a.m.

"Uh-oh, that's not good," says incident manager Luke Connelley, braking his truck to a stop next to the merge lane on northbound I-25 south of Arapahoe Road.

He's noticed a leftover sign that said the Orchard Road exit was closed after it had reopened. Connelley pops out of the truck and turns the sign sideways so it can't be seen by approaching traffic.

A lot of small jobs make one big one

Todd Heilser © News Ron Miller, 50, of Littleton, climbs into the cab of an earth grader while working at University Boulevard and I-25. Both high-tech and low-tech tools are being used in that area of the T-REX project, from computerized traffic-monitoring devices that help ease traffic congestion, to the hand tools used to build the oddly shaped off-ramp. Below: Miller peers out of the cab of his earth grader. He's no stranger to hard work like the T-REX project. He says he has been a heavy equipment operator all of his life. "It's not the age," he jokes. "It's the mileage." All photography »

8:55 a.m.

John Thomas sits atop a Watson 1100 drill on the Broadway light-rail bridge, maneuvering a monstrous bit that penetrates the ground with incredible precision. His job, and that of the rest of the crew, is to install the poles that eventually will carry the light rail's overhead electrical contact system.

It takes Thomas about 15 minutes to drill 13 feet into the ground, but he has to stop periodically so one of the crew members can make sure the hole is in precisely the right spot.

The depth and diameter of each hole Thomas drills has to be just a little different, depending on where it's located. Thomas can't be off, not even by an inch.

The 31-year-old, who has 12 years of drill operating experience, lives in Parker with his wife and two children. His neighbors complain about the T-REX traffic tie-ups. But it doesn't seem that bad to him.

10:25 a.m.

Purchasing agent Susie Cook, 42, is busily processing orders for everything from saw blades to traffic barrels.

Her most popular item: shovels. She has been ordering about 40 a month.

Cook transferred to Denver a year ago from Kiewit's "Big Dig" project in Boston, which is the nation's largest and most complex highway project.

She lives near Castle Rock with her husband, Ted, and their 12-year-old Chihuahua-terrier mix, Sweetpea. The only photo in her cubicle is of Sweetpea, who has traveled to several different Kiewit locations with her over the years.

Like many other Southeast Corridor Constructors employees, Cook puts in long hours and has gotten used to moving. "It's kind of different - never knowing where you are going to be tomorrow."

10:30 a.m.

Los Hermanos - "The Brothers," as they're known along the construction stretch near Washington Street - are building a new hill.

Foreman Ricardo Baeza, 28, watches over his two brothers - one older, one younger - as they transform a mound of backfill into the base for the southbound off-ramp at Washington Street.

Jesus Baeza, the oldest at 34, maneuvers a tractor onto the mound and plops down the load of dirt that his brother, Salvador Baeza, 26, spreads.

Little can be heard through the tractor's rumble and the whirring roar of cars traveling along the southbound interstate, so Ricardo guides his six-man crew with his hands.

Sweat drips from beneath their hard hats. It's taken about a week, but the mound of dirt is nearly halfway complete. When it's done, it will be 20 feet high and 475 feet long.

Less than a quarter-mile away, a worker on another crew has positioned himself - legs locked one in front of the other - on a cherry picker that lifts him two-dozen feet into the air.

He's spraying "mud" onto two massive panels of rebar where it will harden into concrete walls. His machine is shaped like a fire hose and has enough recoil power to push him back each time he shoots.

He slowly and steadily sprays the mixture at the panels, working his way to the top of each, which will measure 22 feet tall by 30 feet wide when finished.

The call for lunch comes and crew members trudge to the side of a wall that has yet to be sprayed, squat to the ground, where they pull out bean and chorizo burritos wrapped in aluminum foil.

"Homemade by my wife," says Ricardo Baeza, whose face is round with dark eyes, and whose hands are construction-worker sturdy but callous-free.

He immigrated to this country about 10 years ago from the small Mexican town of Nueva Casa Grande in the province of Chihuahua. His first job was on a road crew in New Mexico.

Ricardo and his wife have two daughters, ages 3 and 7. When T-REX is done, he wants to drive his family along it and say, "See that? I helped do that."

10:45 a.m.

Once a week, Gary Prentiss and Barry Erlandson tour the T-REX project, looking at traffic flow, signage and safety. Occasionally, they stop for a veal bratwurst lunch at Karl's F.F. Delicatessen on South Yosemite Street.

Prentiss, a Colorado native whose grandparents homesteaded at the site of the former Lowry Air Force Base, retired after 35 years with the Colorado Department of Transportation and works for Carter and Burgess, consultants to T-REX's owners, CDOT and the Regional Transportation District.

Erlandson is a Chicago native, a civil engineer working as design manager for MHT (methods of handling traffic, or in layman's words, traffic control).

"We need wrong-way and lane-assignment signs here," Erlandson says as they inspect the Arapahoe Road exit off northbound I-25. "I need to write an NC (noncompliance report) on that."

A few minutes later, they're on I-225, and Erlandson notices that someone has driven through a construction fence that was extended a few days ago.

"We need a sweeper on this road. I've got to talk to them about tracking mud across it," says Erlandson as they drive on the frontage road between Yosemite and Tamarac Streets.

"Got a big pothole there," Prentiss notes as they travel south of Lincoln.

"Supposed to be fixed tonight," Erlandson says.

Prentiss notices a dumpster alongside the highway.

"Have them check the distance," he says. "I think it's too close."

Barry Gutierrez © News A decorative concrete panel, bearing an artistic rendering of a swallow, dwarfs a construction worker as it is moved into position near the Downing Street bridge. While heavy equipment provides much-needed muscle on the T-REX project, the human touch is still needed to get the details just right. All photography »

11 a.m.

Bill Murphy is the master of the mega-bucks mega-project, the big kahuna, the head honcho, the man behind the curtain in the land of T-REX.

Everything changes quickly here.

That's why Project Manager Murphy drives the corridor regularly to get a picture in his mind of what's going on and where they are, and what's working and what isn't.

An Oregon farm boy who earned an engineering degree in 31/2 years, Murphy joined Kiewit 24 years ago, right out of school. He cut his teeth on the $800 million San Joaquin Hills toll road in California, oversaw the $1.3 billion face-lift to Salt Lake City's Interstate 15, then hopped to Denver with the ease of a frog jumping lily pads.

Southeast Corridor Constructors' part of the T-REX design-build project is worth $1.25 billion, and it's as complex as running a small country. It takes a certain type of dictator - sometimes benevolent, usually affable and absolutely sure of what he wants.

"If I want to stick my nose in where someone doesn't want me, they can't tell me no," Murphy says. "All my guys know - this is not a democracy."

Murphy heads north to the old Narrows section of I-25, which is a lot wider now, to look at a piece of wall and a bunch of green rebar planted in concrete. This small stretch of T-REX has big headache potential and Murphy wants to take a look.

Some residents on the south side of I-25 from Downing to High streets have decided they don't want sound walls. They feel so strongly about it that they have managed to collect enough signatures in three weeks to stop the wall construction in that segment. A final decision hasn't yet been made.

Problem is, some of the concrete panels for the wall have already been fabricated off-site. If Murphy's people can't find another location where those panels will fit into the project, they will be wasted. That might cost the residents, and they want to know how much. So Murphy takes a look.

"I'm the type of person who wants to solve the problem myself," he says. "I don't want to admit failure and say, 'Geez, I can't deal with this,' and give it to my boss."

People are surprised when they meet the mustachioed Murphy. At 45, he looks a little young to be filling billion-dollar shoes.

But when people ask him what he does, he's happy to tell them.

"Some people say, 'Boy, you got guts telling people what you do.' I'm not the least bit ashamed telling them what I do," he says. "Of course, I don't give them my home number."

Todd Heisler © News Michael Wieck, left, leads a traffic-control meeting at a field office for the T-REX project. Wieck shares in the responsibility for the electric signs, video cameras and ramp signals that help motorists negotiate the work zones. All photography »

11:25 a.m.

Segment manager Carnazzo drives through the construction between Broadway and Evans and notices a bungled bird.

The sound barriers and retaining walls have art motifs and require great care to install. The problem involves a swallow on one of the precast panels of a retaining wall near the Franklin Street bridge.

"That panel needs to be removed," Carnazzo says. "The tail of the bird doesn't match up to the body."

11:45 a.m.

With long, blond hair and manicured nails, Merlette Andrews isn't exactly the stereotypical construction worker.

She joined the crew a few days ago, after 20 years as a manicurist. Now it's pounding nails instead of polishing them.

"I love the outside and I wanted a new career," says Andrews, who divorced three years ago.

Because she's new, her duties are basic: shoveling rock, directing trucks and grabbing supplies.

But Andrews, 43, has a goal: operating heavy equipment. That's where the money is.

Her family is pretty supportive, Andrews says, although her 23-year-old son has another thought.

"He thinks I'm crazy," she says, "because it's not what girls do."

11:57 a.m.

"Keep Alert! Don't Get Hurt - 38 Days Without a Recordable Injury" says the sign outside the Belleview Field Office on South Quebec Street. Paving superintendent Keith LaCrosse, 42, walks by and climbs into a company truck. He is on his way to check the progress of a permanent concrete barrier in the middle of I-25 just south of I-225.

"This project is really a big job that's put together with a lot of small jobs," says LaCrosse, a native of Red Lake Falls, Minn., whose self-styled job description is "head scapegoat."

"Something goes wrong, it's Keith's fault," he says with a smile, then looks over at barrier superintendent Martin Rangel, 35.

LaCrosse's smile widens.

"And Martin's my scapegoat," he says.

LaCrosse looks out at the fusillade of cars speeding north and south around him. "Some of these drivers are nuts. I've seen people follow trucks around barricades at night and drive right into where we've just paved, right into fresh concrete. Then they get stuck and want me to pull them out.

"What do I think about that? Nothing you can print."

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