Busway/Pennsy/Panhandle and Corliss Tunnels in Pittsburgh, PA

Panhandle West Portal: (Satellite)

Panhandle East Portal: (Satellite)

Road: (Satellite)

It you see a photo of a tunnel portal and you can see the other end, then it is a portal of the road bridge because that tunnel is short, straight and wide. I focussed on the Panhandle tunnel.

HistoricPittsburgh, cropped
May 22, 1914
"Workers gather under Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad tracks during excavation of the Corliss Tunnel. The Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad, formed in 1890, is a branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company."

HistoricPittsburgh
May 22, 1914
"Three workers watch the photographer as one man sits on a wagon labeled M. O'Herron Co. and two others stand on a steam shovel in this view of excavation on the sub-grade at the south end of the Corliss Tunnel."

pitt
May 22, 1914
"Freight trains sit at the slip of the railroad embankment at the south end of the tunnel on Corliss Street. Men can be seen repairing the tracks, while houses are visible on the hill in the background."

This tunnel was west of Corliss Yard.

1951/51 Pittsburgh West Quad @ 24,000 via Dennis DeBruler

1969 Coronado Bridge over San Diego Bay at San Diego, CA

(Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

ArchivedBridgeHunter

Aerial view of bridge

Photo taken from commercial jetliner. Looking north, Coronado Island is at lower left; Downtown San Diego is at upper left.

Photo taken by Roger Deschner in June 2015

License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)

Description: Huge bridge spanning San Diego Bay, linking Coronado to San Diego. Five lanes wide, with a moveable center barrier to provide for 3 lanes in the heavier direction of travel at different times of the day. Clearance under bridge required to be 200 feet [61m] by the U. S. Navy.

Built as a toll bridge, but became free in 2002. Toll booths remain, in case tolls are ever reinstated.

History: Opened August 3, 1969; seismic retrofit 1999; tolls removed 2002.

Design: Orthotropic deck on box girder

[ArchivedBridgeHunter]

The 3.4km (2.1 mile) long bridge has spans up to 660' (201m).

Boat View, Nov 2017

Street View, Aug 2015

The San Diego-Coronado Bridge is notable among the world's great bridges for the number and size of its concrete towers. There are 30 towers that at their highest point over the bay channel reach a height of 200 feet. They were designed with a curved cap to simulate the Spanish-style mission arches associated with the historical architecture of San Diego. The towers rest on 487 pre-stressed reinforced concrete piles, which measure 54 inches in diameter, with walls 5 inches thick. The piles were driven and jetted 100 feet down into the sand and clay bottom of the bay. The mud was then removed from the inside of the piles and they were filled with concrete. Clusters of up to 44 piles were used under some of the towers.

...

The shipping channels of the bay are spanned by a 1,880-foot, three-span box girder – the largest of its kind in the world. The bridge roadway is an orthotropic steel-plate design and serves as the top flange of the box girder. Its spans are the third longest of their kind in the nation. This design saves steel and provides a slender superstructure with a smooth exterior, with all braces and stiffeners being inside the box girder.

The steel superstructure was built and partially erected in the San Francisco Bay Area. The girders were barged down the coast and lifted into place by a large crane. The precast, prestressed concrete girders measure up to 165-feet-long. They were built in Long Beach and are among the longest of their kind in the U.S.

[Caltrans_facts via ArchivedBridgeHunter]

1:08 video @ 0:02

The Wayback Machine saved at least the index of construction photos. It is a shame that DOTs don't continue to support the URLs that they publish. Disk drives are cheap.

Caltrans via archive

Actually, some of the photo links do work.

Photo

Note the falsework to help build the navigation channel spans.

Photo

Photo

US-219 Bridge over Piney Creek Collapsed May 13, 2025, in Boynton, PA

(Satellite)

May 2025 Flood

I doubt if this is US-219, but it provides an example of the impact of the flood.

wjactv_response

Browsing the results of a Google search, a lot of towns in eastern Pennsylvania were impacted. "This is the worst they have seen it in 30 years." [wjactv_concerns]

The "talking head" PennDOT official in the this video said a "pillar" in the middle of the river collapsed. A PennDOT official should use the proper term of pier instead of pillar. The date on this report is May 20, 2025. The bridge was 102 years old.

wjactv_repairs

This shows the pier. I'm really impressed that they removed the pier, as well as the spans, in less than 7 days.

DailyAmerican

I don't understand how they are going to lower the right-hand end of the bridge. That is, the video ends just when it was going to get interesting. 

PA State Rep. Carl Walker Metzgar posted
U.S. 219 UPDATE: The bridge structure is in ahead of schedule. Check out the innovative installation in the video!

I kept watching the boom to see it boom up. I never caught it in action, but obviously it did slowly go up. In order to keep his end of the bridge level, the operator has a play out the cable at the correct rate as he moves the boom up. This was a smooth operator because I never saw the Bailey bridge deviate from being horizontal.

Above video at the end.

The plan is to build a second temporary bridge next to this one, and then build the permanent replacement.

CSX/C&O Tunnels between Despard and Lodgeville, WV

Abandoned Tunnel: (Satellite)

CSX West Portal: (Satellite)

CSX East Portal: (Satellite)

MP Rail Photography posted

A CSX manifest emerges from the Lodgeville Tunnel as it heads westbound on the Mountain Sub between Bridgeport and Clarksburg.

March 29, 2025

Despard, West Virginia

Power:

CSX 3227 - ES44AH

CSX 799 - ES44AH

CSX 7014 - CM44AC

CSX 589 - AC44CW

The above photo is of the west portal. This view is of the east portal.

Street View, Nov 2024

The tunnels are a little east of Despard. The northern tunnel is obviously abandoned.

The current tunnel is 2,708' (825m) long. [TheWashCycle]

1958/60 Clarksburg Quad @ 24,000

1940 Rooster Creek Bridge near Catfish Bay on Lake Texoma near Kingston, OK

(Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

It is a single lane bridge that is 225' (69m) long.

Street View, May 2022

It spans a lobe of Lake Texoma that is formed by the Denison Dam. Since it is a dam-controlled lake, sometimes it is low, and...

2014 Photo by Logan Layden via BridgeHunter

...sometimes the lake is high.

2007 Photo by Liz Lavallee via BridgeHunter

This is the normal lake level.

BridgeHunter

May 2025 Flood

Meteorologist Chris Nunley posted

Blanchard, OK: Dam Breach and Destroyed County Road

(Satellite)

May 2025 Flood

This county road is built on a dam so when the dam was breached, the road was severed.

Storm Chaser Jordan Hall posted

KOCO 5 News posted

Now all of the homes west of the breach are isolated.

Satellite

Lake Lawtonka Dam on Medicine Creek near Lawton, OK

(Satellite)

Street View, Oct 2024

The area had a significant flood in 2015 so the spillway gates were used.

TeachOklahoma, Aug 11, 2015

NorthwesternCraneService, I could not find a date.
"The LTM 1450-8.1 using luffer to pull out old dam gates at 231′. The 20,000 lb gates were re-finished and put back in place, all while allowing traffic on the lake side of the dam to continue without delays or closures."

This is one of several dams built in the Texas-Oklahoma area to store water for a water supply. They kept raising the height of the dam to store more water. It is now the largest lake in Oklahoma.

experience

This was when it was 50' (15.2m) high.

experience
"Postcard of the dam, January 15, 1912"

experience
"Aerial photograph of the dam at Lake Lawtonka (1918-1922)"

experience
"Newspaper photo 'The eight steel gates atop the Lake Lawtonka spillway are shown being open for inspection,' 1956"

May 2025 Flood

The 2025 flood is in the same ballpark as the 2015 flood.

Haley Wilson posted 0:05 video on Apr 30, 2025

UPDATE as of 1pm, Lawtonka now had 6 of 8 gates open 38” and Ellsworth has 12 of 16 open to 15”

The City of Lawton has opened 6 of Lake Lawtonka’s 8 gates to 34” each and 12 of Lake Ellsworth’s 16 gates to 10” each. The city’s website says both of the lakes are 100% full. This is video Justin Stevens got at Lake Lawtonka earlier today.

[A comment observed that they had 18" of rain.]

usgs

A little downstream from the dam is a waterfall.

Satellite

I've seen several Facebook Reels of a heavy flow over the flows. I picked this one because it documents that the flow has stayed within the banks of the creek.

Facebook Reel

There were also a lot of Facebook Reels that showed water in this gorge. But they are close up to the water and don't show much other than a strong current. And some comments that the trail is under water. I think this view is more meaningful. Imagine enough water flowing through the gorge that it is several feet above the trail.

Street View, Oct 2016