Bridge Collapse Think about these families as they sort through things: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/minnesota_bridge_collapse here is a picture of the bridge before collapse: http://www.twincities.com/portlet/article/html/imageDisplay.jsp?contentItemRelationshipId=1605515
I guess it's just one of those things that happen. :embarassed: Hopefully no one was severely injured. :zip: Shows the world we live in when a Homeland Security spokseman is quoted saying "We continue to monitor the situation. At this time, there's no indication of a nexus to terrorism." Why would anyone think it was terrorism???
Oh, sorry there. I was taking more from the little blurb I heard several hours ago on the radio, and they had not had any fatalities confirmed then. Shows me for reading too quickly.
Been watching this one on CNN and other news channels. What a mess! The bad news is that there were deaths. The good side is the emergency response was excellent. That could very well have kept the casualty count down.
There are railroad tracks and cars involved here is a photos: http://tinyurl.com/2aktva http://tinyurl.com/233tfz
I was just watching the news on this event. The bridge fell across a railroad track on one or both sides of the river. Does anyone have any information on track closures related to this? Are the tracks main lines? How much of a bottleneck will this be for the railroads? What railroad is involved? Thanks. [edit] I just did a Google earth search. There appears to be a small rail yard (5-10 tracks) on the north side of the river. The west end yard throat is under the highway where the collapse occurred, but it may be far enough away to not have been affected. Also, there is a nice pedestrian walkway across the east end of the yard. Good for pictures? [edit #2] Looks like an auto rack was crushed in the yard.
Bridge Collapse Three years ago my wife and our daughter and I rode the Empire Builder through Minneapolis/St.Paul. The train went along the mississippi and I wonder if we had gone under that bridge?
From what I have pieced together on the net the tracks under the collapsed bridge are BNSF and are used only for car storage. The line is former BN/GN and ceased being a through line in 1978. The flour mill the track connected to closed in 2003 and now the tracks are just used for storage. The TV reports have shown several views of the collapsed bridge resting on crushed covered hoppers and a tank car.
Yeah, I just looked at it and agree. The original GN bridge across the Mississippi is now a pedestrian walkway bridge, not a main line at all. The line on the north end is either isolated or secondary, so if you say car storage I'd probably agree. There's no AAR reroutes, BNSF news releases, or anything else like that that I've seen this morning to indicate there's much of a rail impact. Note that the bridge also fell in a set of locks on the south side. This far north it is only barges, but locks are still difficult to repair at best. This is about as far north as navigable navigation goes, so it may not be that bad in terms of economic impact. I'm still astounded at the video I saw with the near vertical-drop of the main span, crushing the truss and arches. We had a controlled demolition of a bridge here, and the object was to get it to drop straight and flat in one shot. And that's just what that video looked like to me. Unbelievable.
If you look at photo 7 in this series you can see crowds of people on the old railway bridge viewing the scene. http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/02/bridge.collapse.irpt/index.html According to Wikipedia the bridge was an NP bridge. Edit: I see now that there is also the former GN bridge to the west, farther away from the collapse site. Interesting that the bridge that collapsed is decades younger than the other bridges near it.
I've seen many of RR bridges turned into street bridges start have survived allot and these new "modern" things that are a constant issue; especially those made with today's concrete. Maybe they should go back to why the RR made their bridges the way they did and why they are still doing there job 100 years later. :lightbulb: :lightbulb: :lightbulb: :lightbulb:
I think there is on industry in there.. at least last time I was down in there. Not sure if it's served anymore. The bridge those people are on is indeed NP. The bridges up river are the stone arch(X GN) and then the GN Wilmar sub which is still in service. I made a quick google map of the area for anyone who's curious. http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=U....988538,-93.251524&spn=0.041885,0.079823&z=14 Tim
I went to school for engineering. The reports on this incident are going to be very interesting. Perhaps a warning to those politicians who keep repeating: "But the experts told us it was safe". This bridge design was known to be unsafe for almost 40 years. Frank
what gets me is that they'll find all kinds of money to build things like new staduims we don't need.. but they won't fix the roads.
CNN has some excerpts from the report that the 2001 inspection had the "D" word in it - "distortion", which is a fancy word for "bent". Doesn't take much to bend out of shape on a truss before suddenly forces are pushing into air instead of steel..... http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/08/02/bridge.structure/index.html Man, that's a whole lot of bridge on what seems like four relatively small points of support.
Quote: Man, that's a whole lot of bridge on what seems like four relatively small points of support. That's exactly the point. One support goes, the whole bridge is gone. Frank
Just goes to prove that living can be inherently dangerous (NOT meant as a flip comment). As for the terrorism comment, I think that in the world we now live in, anything major involving transport or infrastructure will be looked at through that lens, if only briefly.
