Copper River & Northwestern Railway and its bridges

Mile 27, Flag Point Bridge: (Satellite; Blog; more below)

Mile 28: the bridge no longer exists; Blog

Mile 34, Hot Cake Bridge: the bridge no longer exists?; Blog

Mile 49, Million Dollar Bridge: (Satellite, I use Bing because, for the first time I have seen it, the Google image is blurry; Blog; more below)

Mile 132, Copper River Trestle: (Satellite, replaced with road bridge; Blog)

Mile 145, Kuskulana River Bridge: (Street View; Satellite; Blog; more below)

The copper mine ran out and the mine and railroad were abandoned on Nov 11, 1938. [r2parks]

r2parks

Mile 49:  I start with the famous "Million Dollar" Bridge. The Mysteries of the Abandoned series on Science Channel had a segment about this bridge. I remember the railroad was built to access a copper mine. The problem with TV shows is that it is hard to go back and get additional information. Fortunately, there is quite a bit of info about it on the internet.

Forgotten Railways, Roads, and Places shared

One of the most famous abandoned bridges in the world. Abandoned in 1938 by the Copper River & Northwestern Railway, it was converted to a vehicle bridge, but sustained major damage in the 1964 Alaskan earthquake.

It was repaired again in the mid-2000’s despite not being accessible via road, since the repair costs were actually cheaper than having the bridge dismantled. Had it collapsed, it could have triggered an environmental disaster, as salmon use the Copper River in their seasonal passages.

Dennis DeBruler It appears that since they paid to repair it, they decided to use it to build a road from Cordova, AK-10. https://www.bing.com/maps... But it soon stops at a "Winter Trail," https://binged.it/2G5RfTe, which I assume is a ice road.

Bridges Now and Then posted
A July, 1984, close up of the damage and kludgy "repairs" to Alaska's Miles Glacier Bridge (Million Dollar Bridge) from the 1964 Good Friday Earthquake. These temporary repairs were properly fixed in 2004. (Jet Lowe)
Allen Schroeter: The controversial decision was made to repair it after a severe September 1995 flood caused the bridge to be impassable and also made an eventual washout of debris onto Childs Glacier inevitable. State engineers determined that it was less expensive to repair the bridge than it would be to remove it, or (in a worst-case scenario) clean up if the bridge completely collapsed into the river.

CR&NR Blog: Start

CR&NR Blog: The "Million Dollar" Bridge

r2parks

Mile 27:

CR&NR Blog: First Big Steel Bridge

Mile 145:  Joseph John Torregrossa provided two photos in comments on the share by Forgotten Railways, Roads, and Places.
There is another CR&NW railway bridge that has been converted to road use and is still in service to this day! Drove over it a few months ago
Joseph John Torregrossa And from what I’ve been told that guardrail is a relatively new addition.

1, cropped

2