Until Sep 2024, I erroneously called this the Santa Fe Bridge. The Santa Fe Bridge is further downstream (East).
They would have parked the stone filled cars on the bridge when the flood was predicted to reduce the chance that a span is pushed off of its pier.
Someone must have cleaned up the bridge and cars because I don't see them in the satellite image.
They would have parked the stone filled cars on the bridge when the flood was predicted to reduce the chance that a span is pushed off of its pier.
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| Third photo posted by Brian Wunderlick Topeka Ks, July 1951 CRIP bridge pier failure over the Kansas River Chad Henton The bridge and the cars are still in the river to this day. River is very low right now, easily seen. Chad Henton The south half of the current bridge seen on the left side of this photo is still in use( built in 1904), the two spans seen failing here where replaced after this photo. |
You can see that the grade of the railroad is below the top of the levee. A BridgeHunter comment confirms that the structures on the piers can lift the trusses up during a flood event. And that capability was used during the 1993 floods.
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| Street View, Jul 2021 |
A BridgeHunter comment said that you can still see the lost trusses. I presume that is here. Another comment said these may be from the 1903 floods. That the trusses from the 1951 floods were salvaged.
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| Satellite |
Anonymous comment on Bridge Hunter:
In past years I did much research on the 1951 flood. The spans in the river were collapsed the evening of July 14th, 1951. This bridge was built in 1903 to replace a bridge that was completely destroyed in that flood. In fact, all bridges over the Kansas river were destroyed in the flood of 1903 with the exception of the 1900 built MoPac bridge in Kansas City, which still stands today and is in use. If you search historic images and special collections, aerial photographs exist of this bridge swamped in the July 14th flood waters with weighted railcars and locomotives parked on it in effort to weigh it down. The following morning, additional ones were taken and the center spans are missing. The paper in Topeka published an article too that day I'd read with photos detailing how this bridge and its companion AT&SF; bridge downstream about a 1/2 mile both lost center spans and all the locomotives just hours apart when the water was at maximum discharge levels.AT&SF; pieced their bridge back together with different span types and one of them is clearly shorter as well. Rock Island rebuilt this bridge with identical spans (as you pointed out). Much like ATSF, RI left the damaged spans and submerged locomotives in the river where they still remain. The Kaw is also not classified as a "navigable waterway" by the Coast Guard so removing those spans would be a waste of money, and we all know that railroads don't like spending that. RI however did go a step ahead of ATSF, and installed a flood jack system (the sheds atop those arches) and reinforce the piers on this bridge in years after. Three bridges in KC (one also owned by RI at the time) also have a flood jack system that were installed after the 1951 flood. These were most recently used in the flood of 1993.In closing, I've never seen any photos or info on this bridge's predecessor, but I can say that the spans in the river were built in 1903 with the bridge and not from an earlier one. If looked at in person (from Topeka Blvd) and google earth, it is clear they are Warren trusses as is the rest of the bridge. If I had to guess I'd say the first one was probably an old lattice truss similar to the 1899 Blue River bridge in Manhattan or perhaps even a wood pile structure. Whichever the case, the 1903 flood was much less severe in comparison to '51 or '93, so it was pretty weak to have been completely wiped out. Sorry to ramble on, wanted to share at least what I knew on the subject....... :-)
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| This images was moved to "BNSF/Santa Fe Bridge over Kansas River in Topeka, KS." |
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