Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation Railroad Bridge

Historic Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Corporation Railroad Bridge over the Ohio River between Steubenville, Jefferson County, Ohio and Coketown, Brooke County, West Virginia. The Baltimore through truss bridge was built in 1917 by the American Bridge Company for the La Belle Iron Works of Wheeling.

Metrotrails posted two photos with the comment:

Then and Now Series: Steubenville Railroad Bridge, completed in 1926, with 1909 approaches, on the same site as the previous 1865 bridge. The current bridge reuses one pier.
The bridge was constructed around the original which made for no interruption in traffic save for one day when the switchover occurred.
It is a Continuous Rivet-Connected Baltimore Through Truss structure with Metal 6 Panel Rivet-Connected Warren Deck Truss approach spans.
This was once a main line, the Panhandle route of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Under Conrail, it was made a secondary, and the Panhandle Line was abandoned from Weirton to Carnegie. This bridge still sees some industrial service, but only a shadow of what it once was.

M'ke Helbing shared

Street View

Anthony Scurti posted
Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel

James Torgeson posted
A loaded coke train is dwarfed by by the massive private railroad bridge that crosses the Ohio River from Follansbee, WV to Steubenville, OH. The span was built in 1917 by American Bridge for Wheeling Steel. The equally massive former PRR Panhandle bridge is a bit upstream. April 24, 2007.
John Slowikowski: That is an old one. The blast furnaces are still standing and part of the old Weirton steel plant is still there in the background.
Owen Nesslage: Man i forgot about that operation. They could only take 7-8 loaded Coke cars across the bridge because it was in such poor condition. Now adays they run the Norfolk Southern train to weirton, then run around it and go down to Follansbee.
Paul Gonter: Coke plant is still operating. Worked there this spring during a shutdown.

Bubba Dubs commented on James' post
[This explains why it is still standing. It has become a utilities bridge.]

Bubba Dubs commented on Paul's comment

Engineering News-Record Vol. 79, No. 3, p104

Engineering News-Record Vol. 79, No. 3, p105

Jackson Magee shared Todd Dillion's post
[Todd has refused to fix his comment of "Mingo Jct Ohio." The highline doesn't go over a bridge in that town. JSW now owns the steel plants. This one is evidently called Steubenville North, the one in Mingo Junction is Steubenville South and the coke plant across the river is Steubenville East. The blast furnaces have been replaced with an electric arc furnace (EAF), Ladle Metallurgy Furnace (LMF) and slab caster in Mingo Jct.]

Street View

Carl Venzke posted
Special thanks to John Slowikowski for identifying the location for us. "Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel Steubenville,OH plant no 1 and no 2 blast furnaces and the bridge which isn’t used anymore goes to the Follansbee,WV coke plant which is still in production " Great photo! I have no date or photographer info for this photo but guessing 40's or 50's.

John Slowikowski commented on Carl's posting

John Slowikowski commented on Carl's posting
This is from the West Virginia side, look to the background you can see the furnaces.

Facebook resolution

Sam Busic posted
Don Daller: what was the original railroad that built it ?
Dennis DeBruler: Wheeling-Pittsburgh Steel. It connected their coke ovens on the east side with their two blast furnaces on the west side.

Sam commented on his post
Still in use, Norfolk Southern

This is from an album of the demolition of BFs #4 and #5 that was shared by Mike Abernethy

Dave Kuntz posted four photos with the comment: "The Wheeling Pittsburgh Steel Company Railroad Bridge. It was used to haul coke from Follansbee WV to the blast furnace in Steubenville OH. The coke was dumped from the bridge and you can still see the blast furnace foundations along with the unusual dump track and abandoned plant across the river."

Tim Shanahan shared