Whether it’s structural steel erection, fabrication, detailing, or project management needs, Niagara Rigging & Erecting (NRE), experts at constructing various types of steel structures and bridges, acts as a one-stop shop of skills and knowledge. With more than 30 years of experience in the structural steel industry, NRE has earned the respect of a variety of businesses, steel fabricators, and contractors with its integrity and dedication to clients.
Established in 1988 by Bill and Linda MacLeod, NRE is a proudly family-run business that continues to embrace its core values stemming from the family’s roots of honesty, integrity, hard work, reliability, and commitment. These principles serve as the cornerstone of the company’s success and are upheld in every project it undertakes, alongside a strong culture of teamwork.
While the second generation of the family now leads NRE, providing a broad range of options to meet clients’ structural steel needs remains top priority. From the budgeting and tender stages to the on-site erection, NRE’s management team collaborates with clients, steel fabricators, and designers, utilizing its breadth of expertise to carry out intricate projects that require extensive pre-planning and erection using both traditional and unconventional techniques. The company employs specific lifting techniques and strategic erection to execute projects across an array of industries and types, such as offices, residential, industrial, overhead crane installation, shoring procedures, and government and municipality clients, to name just a few.
When it comes to erecting bridge structures in areas with heavy traffic, such as densely populated cities, railroad routes, and highways, NRE has demonstrated the ability to tackle these challenging projects by carefully designing and carrying out engineered lifting and strategic erection operations while paying close attention to access, safety, and schedule. The team’s bridge erection projects have included pedestrian bridges, arch bridges, existing bridge removals, bearing replacements, and more.
NRE also provides direct assistance with design elements including erector-friendly connections, member selection, erection stability, budget prices, and deadlines, in collaboration with engineers, architects, owners, and steel fabricators. Pre-planning is where every lift starts and every element is examined, including the choice of rigging and equipment, load weight calculations, erection stability, and safety considerations.
Located in Thorold, Ontario, on a 2 ½-acre plot of land, NRE’s site includes two shops—the largest at 11,200 square feet and the other 6,400 square feet—connected to a 3,000-square-foot, one-storey office. The shop houses overhead cranes and a sizable, safe, outdoor yard where the company can keep its cranes and support equipment.
“We currently have contracts for 10 different bridge projects across Ontario totalling 20 individual bridges,” shares Vice President Mark MacLeod. Owners of these bridges include the Ministry of Transportation Ontario (MTO), the City of Richmond Hill, Metrolinx/GO, the City of Hamilton, Halton Region, Wellington County, the City of Mississauga, and the Niagara Region, with all projects slated for completion between the end of 2025 and 2028, he adds.
“One project of particular interest is the four train bridges we are building for Keiwit at Union Station in downtown Toronto,” MacLeod tells us. “We are currently assembling these four spans on temporary supports about 10 feet off the ground. We will pick each individual span up with a self-propelled modular transport (SPMT) and move them out to Jarvis Street—two spans—and Sherbourne Street—two spans—and place them on their abutments in one lift with a 750-metric-ton crane,” he explains. NRE’s scope of work on the project is slated for completion by the end of 2025.
Earlier in 2025 and late 2024, NRE completed a massive bridge project over the Bronte Creek in the City of Oakville, encompassing 4,000 tons of bridge girders and diaphragms, a project that “speaks for itself,” says MacLeod. In addition to giving commuters, cyclists, pedestrians, and private vehicles a new path, the bridge connects the City of Burlington and Town of Oakville over Bronte Creek and will relieve traffic on neighbouring roads by extending Wyecroft Road between Bronte Road and Burloak Drive. A new water main will also be erected as part of this project to supply Oakville in the event that the city needs more water or grows.
The project’s many advantages include connecting nearby employment lands, giving business owners, employees, and customers easier access to work and retail; providing drivers an alternate route, easing traffic congestion on local roads and the QEW; cutting down on commute times to Appleby and Bronte GO stations; and offering new pedestrian and cycling infrastructure as alternative modes of transportation.
All of the girders for the project were fabricated slightly differently based on the bearing elevations, crossfalls, water drainage, and the different slope and profile of the road, and rather than lifting the individual steel girders on their own, NRE preassembled sets in a staging area. At three girders long and two wide, these sets came in at 73 metres long and 175 metric tonnes. With the span being so long and the weight so immense, this was no easy lift, but NRE utilized SPMTs—self-propelled modular transporters capable of moving massive loads—to shuttle sets up to the span. Across the gap, a massive crawler crane took the weight off the far end as the SPMTs rolled the set further over the gap. A second crane on the short side picked up the open end, and the two cranes worked together in tandem to lower the set into its final resting place.
Working well together and always up for the challenge, NRE’s employees ensured the project moved swiftly and smoothly, understanding that the order of operations was critical to the success of these lifts. Self-described perfectionists, the company set a target of one set per day.
For Phase 2 of the project, the massive 320-metre chasm needed to be closed using a colossal amount of steel—57 girders at 2,000 metric tonnes. While it seemed overwhelming, it was a perfect job for NRE. Not a typical girder installation, NRE had to build up scaffolding around concrete piers to give them extra space for hydraulic jacks under the girders and balance steel on two piers. Lining the girders up so the midspan fit perfectly in place, the crew then adjusted the jacks.
Challenges included pushing through a bitterly cold Canadian winter, but four months after the first girder was laid, NRE was ready to complete the final span. It was a thrill to see the last girders go in, allowing everyone to celebrate the incredible achievement with a sense of accomplishment.
“We are a leader in bridge construction because of our attention to detail and fair pricing, but most of all, our execution of the work,” says MacLeod. “Our core employees have been with us since close to the beginning with regard to steel bridge construction.”
Learning how to tackle complex structures together is another source of pride for the company. “We have taken on some of the biggest and most complex steel bridge construction projects Ontario has to offer as well as the smallest, and we’ve been successful on all of them through hard work, dedication, and attention to detail from all of our core employees and subcontractors,” he adds.
Another impressive accomplishment for NRE was the rapid replacement of nine rail spans over five weekends for Metrolinx in Rockwood, Ontario. “We would come in and remove one or two 100-year-old rail spans going over the Eramosa River each weekend and replace them with new, fully assembled spans in the same weekend,” MacLeod says. “We currently are contracted to do this type of work again for Metrolinx over the Etobicoke Creek, having become the go-to company for rapid rail bridge replacement over the past 10 years or so.”
Along with the massive Wyecroft Road extension completed earlier this year, in 2024 NRE also completed a new chemical plant in Fort Erie, Ontario, where the company supplied and installed more than 4,000 tons of structural steel, open web steel joists, and 200,000 square feet of steel decking. “This was a massive project for NRE completed a half-hour away from our head office,” says MacLeod.
Looking ahead, NRE is definitely geared for growth, aiming to complete its hundredth bridge span on time and on budget while also continuing to expand the company itself.
Of course, exemplary customer service is another quality the company will continue to ensure is a priority, as it has done since the start, while honouring its strong family roots.
“Usually when you hire NRE, you get one or both of the owners hands-on, helping to directly run your project if it’s complex, along with a core group of ironworkers and crane operators who work together all the time,” MacLeod says. “This makes a difference to customers. Decisions can be made with much less red tape, the flow of the work and efficiency is better, and the quality of the work is much better.”
