Wednesday, March 6, 2024

1971 Koocanusa Bridge over Lake Koocanusa near Rexford, MT

(Bridge Hunter broke Mar 22, 2023; Satellite, 149 photos)

Lake Koocanusa is the reservoir created by the Libby Dam on the Kootenay River.

After a derailment because of a landslide, BNSF had to fetch some locomotives out of the Kootenai River. (BNSF and others spell it Kootenai, Google Maps spells it Kootenay.)

Street View, Sep 2022

John Weber posted two images with the comment: "Bridge crosses Lake Koocanusa, which is the Kootenai River in MT. Very long lake. The railroad ran along the river and was diverted for the Libby Dam and reservoir. Quite a project."
1

2

Brad Pollen, Jul 2019
It is 215' (55m) above the original river level. [All other sources specified 270'. But they all made the error of saying that was 270' above lake level. So I think an error got copied&pasted on the internet.]

Digitally Zoomed

The lake level varies quite a bit. Note how full it was in the photo at the top of these notes.
MontanaHistoricLandscape
The bridge is 2,437' (743m, half mile) long.

This bridge is the tallest and longest bridge in Montana, and it crosses a lake that is over 90 miles (145km) long. There are sidewalks on both sides of the bridge. [OnlyInYourState]

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