72 hour Challenge "Railroad Bridges" due Monday 29th

You know, that is a pretty big through plate girder bridge. It's a long span and looks like the sides are pretty tall.

 

Man, I just got back home from my trip in time to enter the contest. Good thing I read through today's posts before hitting the sack. This may be the only time I get to participate in one of these contests. The 72 hour limit is tough for me as I don't have any trains within striking distance. But as luck would have it I went on a railfan trip with a few friends this weekend, and some of the last shots I took were of a bridge.

By the way, thanks for reminding me of the "Bridge over troubled water" thread. I thought I had posted a shot of this bridge in that thread, and I had. Of course that was from my old RI album, so the link no longer worked. I took the opportunity to edit that post and put in one of these new shots.

Anyway, by lead in, this is an old (1900-1910 era) bridge over the Panuco River, which is the border between Tamaulipas state and Veracruz. This line headed south from Tampico and was designed to be a short route between Tampico and Mexico City. It never got built more than 50 miles south from the bridge (construction interupted by the Mexican Revolution and never resumed). That's a shame, because that line would have passed very close to where I now live. The line remained in service with little traffic until the 1990's when it was abandoned and the rails lifted.

The first shot is my contest entry, the other three are included only for information. The shot only shows six of the 7 spans. I couldn't back up far enough to get a good shot including the first span on the left. The first two spans that you see on the left in the picture actually pivoted over that center mechanism to allow boat traffic to pass. Beyond the last truss section at the right are six or seven deck girder spans (not visible) that carry the approach over the low bank on the north shore.


Here's a closer view from the river bank.


And a shot from the other side. Better light from here but more stuff in the way.


And the obligatory shot from the end of the bridge, showing that the ties and rails have been removed. I'm surprised that they haven't yet cut it up for scrap.


Whew!! Pictures downloaded from the camera, edited and uploaded to RI and I still have an hour to spare before the contest closes!! (Or at least I think so.)

Regards

Ed

 

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It is a pretty tall bridge. There is also a narrow road that goes under the bridge on the right side. The road leads to a residential area. I got pictures of about 6 different bridges yesterday.

 

Sorry about that Colonel

 

Only 19 votes so far

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Darren, I too was surprised that only 25 votes were cast as of this morning. Given that 13 members submitted pics that qualified under the timeline, that means only 12 other people voted. Thats less than 10% of the membership!! :angry:

 

Live & Learn

At this rate we might want to take the top 3 vote getters and vote again on the finalists since the spread of the votes is so wide. Maybe next time allow people to vote for more than one since there are a lot of great photos in the first round making a single vote tough.

 

I'll second that as I must admit it was tough to pick a best photo. They are all great pictures.

 

I'm not sure allowing multiple votes really helps break deadlocks where you have 3 or 4 photos that seems to be in the lead.

But I agree with Flash's comment in the other thread that the contest may need better visibility. It's obvious to me because I view TrainBoard in "Live View" format so I see posts referring to it come up every now and then. But someone who just logs in and goes to his favorite two or three forums may not be that aware of it.

Regards

Ed