Thursday, May 16, 2019

CN/EJ&E Bridge over DuPage River in Plainfield, IL

(no Bridge Hunter; Satellite)

Why bother with yet another steel girder bridge? First of all, it shows that the DuPage River gets pretty big after the West and East Forks merge.

Secondly, when I first looked at the satellite image, I was surprised that the pier stuck out in the downstream direction. Ice breaking protrusions should be on the upstream side. Then I realized that the EJ&E might have had two tracks. This was confirmed by looking at the abutments of this bridge and of the bridge across Division Street. But looking at the satellite photo, the embankment supports just one track. So evidently the piers and abutments were built to make it easy to add a second track to the line.

Thomas Fabianski posted
Over the DuPage.
LHF BLE 902 makes an unusual pose as it crosses the DuPage river in Plainfield. The Swelled River from the recent rains has pushed alot of tree branches along the bridge embankment, making the waters look pretty rough under there, but otherwise the river was relitavely calm, and a few fish swam by as the train passed.
Another one off the bucket list: taken 5-14-19
A street view shows a lower level. Although it was raining. This is the first time I have seen street views being taken in the rain.
Street View
Although the river may have been pretty high in that street view as well. This is the trail bridge on the other side of Division Street.
Street View
And I took the photo below during a special trip to take photos of the Des Plaines and Fox Rivers after we had a lot of rain for several days in the area. The river doesn't look much higher than the above street view. So Thomas did seem to catch the river at a rather high level. I've done more than one field trip after heavy rains to catch high river levels. Now I need to go on a trip after a drought period to document how low the rivers get.
20170725 0569rc

Satellite
A third reason this bridge was interesting is that when I looked at the boundaries of Plainfield to see if the preposition in the title should be "in" or "near," I learned that the boundary is complicated. There are boundary lines on both sides of the bridge. When you zoom in on the bridge, the boundary lines disappear. But I think the boundary lines jog around the bridge to keep the railroad out of the town. I also noticed that north of 135th Street, the railroad seems to be just outside of the boundary. I assume the railroad resisted annexation as much as possible to keep its property taxes lower.
Nick Hart posted
Approaching the River Sub in Plainfield, the Joliet-East Morris L509 crosses the Duper (better known as the DuPage River) with a pair of Illinois Central deathstars.
01-20-20
[CN engines that still have the IC "Death Start" livery are a favorite with railfans. And this is a reminder that CN bought both IC and EJ&E because these engines are on EJ&E tracks.]

Nick's caption will help me remember where the River Sub joins the mainline (Leithton Sub, I believe).
Satellite

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