Bridges

I know there is a lot of interest in bridges of all types, both prototype and model. How many different ones can we find?

For a start, this thru-truss, swing bridge is on the Amtrak main line in Mystic, Connecticut. It just happens to have an Acela passing over it.

 

How about the Starrucca stone bridge viaduct?

 

Here is the NP (now BNSF) Snake River Bridge at sunset. This bridge is on the Wallula Branch between Ainsworth Jct. and Wallula WA where a paper mill is located and the BNSF interchanges with the UP and Blue mountain RR. The bridge is a vertical lift design to allow the heavy river traffic to pass under it. One interesting feature of this drawbridge is that it is remotly controlled from Pasco. When the bridge operator wants to close the bridge for rail traffic he makes a call on the Marine VHF radio and if no one call him back he sounds a horn and closes the bridge. The Celilo bridge on the Oregon trunk line is also controlled this way, by the same bridge operator.

 

Great shots. Both beautiful, but in different ways. Keep'em coming.

 

Peirce, this too is a truss-type, across the Columbia River between Portland, OR and Vancouver, WA. It's a swing span (the second one) and happens to have a 4449 in all black crossing it. Man, I have a lot of pictures of that engine. Should have played with the color on this. Whole roll came back "tinted".

 

I might as well throw in these three photos of the Gordon Creek bridge on the Utah Railway SW of Helper, Utah. The first two are long shots from the top of a ridge to the west. The final shot is up close from the bottom.
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The bridge that was.

This first picture is of all that remains of the NHRR bridge across the Housatonic River, connecting The Sandy Hook portion of Newtown, CT, with Southbury, CT. This was shot from the Southbury side.



This next is a scan from an old postcard from the 1920s. The picture was shot from the Newtown side.

 

Here's a concrete beam bridge taking the Devon main line across the Exeter flood channel, a Virgin HST set heads north...

 

I'll have to say that perhaps my three favorite bridges are the old East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Railroad bridge crossing Chickamauga Creek near Chattanooga, Tennessee; the Southern Railway's Tennessee River bridge (Tennbridge) at Chattanooga, Tennessee and the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway (now CSXT) bridge at Bridgeport, Alabama.

Of the East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia bridge, only the piers remain. That bridge was replaced in 1912 when Southern rebuilt the line from Chattanooga to Ooltewah. Originally it was a three span, stone arch bridge-unusual for a southern railroad. It survived several floods which submerged it and would have washed away a lesser structure.

The Southern Railway bridge and CSXT bridge are center lift span bridges. The Southern bridge was built in 1919 to replace a swing span bridge which was destroyed in a train derailment. The old center bearing pier was used in the new bridge and gives the bridge a strange look, not matching the others. This bridge sits on the Cincinatti, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway and is functional but rarely operated.

The CSXT bridge at Bridgeport, Alabama is actually two bridges. One is a fixed bridge which carries the railroad across the secondary channel at Bridgeport Bar to the narrow island. On the other side of the island is the center span lift bridge which carries the railroad across the main river channel. It has a much lower vertical clearance than Tennbridge and is operated more frequently.

 

The Huey P. Long bridge over the Mississippi River near New Orleans is said to be the longest railroad bridge in the world at 4.5 miles from grade to grade.

I found a photo essay showing a BNSF train leaving New Orleans and crossing that bridge on its way west.

BNSF train crossing Huey P. Long Bridge

If you want to go over the Huey P. Long, you can take a car .... or you can take Amtrak's Sunset Limited (#1 & 2) which crosses the bridge three times a week each way.

[ 01. August 2002, 14:02: Message edited by: Hank Coolidge ]

 

The following photos show the CSX (ex-L&N, ex-NO&M) bridge across Rigolets Pass about 30 miles northeast of New Orleans. Rigolets (pronounced rig-uh-lees) Pass connects Lake Ponchartrain on the right with the Mississippi Sound and the Gulf of Mexico. The photos were taken from the back platform of Amtrak's Gulf Wind which ran between Mobile, AL and New Orleans from July, '96 until April '97.





[ 01. August 2002, 14:18: Message edited by: Hank Coolidge ]

 

THANK YOU FOR THE WONDERFUL PHOTOS BOYS

 

I know I have posted this before, but it kind of goes with Watash's. Tunkhannock Viaduct, Nicholson, PA with NYS&W 142 and train enroute to Steamtown grand openining, 1995.

 

I founded a rail bridge discussion group over at Yahoo! about a year ago. It can be found at http://www.yahoogroups.com/group/RRbridge

While I admit that the group isn't the most active, it does exist to provide information on these fascinating structures.

 

By the way, if any of the above bridge pictures came off a website...let me know so I can link to them for the group homepage.

 

Harvey, To obtain the URL for any photo or link within a topic, do the following ...

Right-click on the photo or link you want, then left-click on "Properties", and the URL will be displayed. Highlight the entire URL by holding the left-click button down and swiping across the URL. Finally, use the right-click button to Copy the URL from the Properties menu and Paste it into your destination page.

Caveat ....
I assume that the photo or topic to which you are linking is in the Public Domain , since the URL that you are copying is openly available through the normal process. I hope that some of our members will correct my assumption if I am incorrect.

[ 02. August 2002, 14:04: Message edited by: Hank Coolidge ]

 

Fitz,
That picture does look familiar, but it is so spectacular it is worth repeating.

 

I wish I could do that, but I have WebTV. The only way I can obtain a picture URL is if I'm given the link directly...

 

OOPS, sorry 'bout that ...

Here's the Huey P. Long Bridge photo essay site. http://lrs.railspot.com/hnwoa.htm