Durango & Silverton Narrow Gauge 1888 Bridge over Animas River in Durango, CO

(Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; Satellite)

Photo by Nathan D. Holmes via Bridge Hunter, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

My motivation for saving this video of a DGNS train is the heavy flow of the river. One good thunderstorm on the watershed can make a mountain river flow heavily for a little while. Of course, seeing a steam locomotive in action is also nice. This is the only six-panel truss on the Bridge Hunter page so I'm pretty sure this is the bridge that is in town.

Screenshot

Satellite

Some of the spans are older than that locomotive. And any narrow gauge steam locomotive is pretty old.

From west to east, the bridge is configured as follows. First, there is a riveted through plate girder span. A plaque on this bridge indicates that the Lassig Plant of Chicago of the American Bridge Company built this span in 1901. This construction date indicates this is one of the earliest bridges built by the American Bridge Company which formed in 1900. This span was originally located on the Pleasant Valley Branch in Utah and was relocated here in 1927.
The next span of the bridge is a pin-connected Pratt through truss with ornamented portal bracing. This span was built in 1888, and was originally located over the Conejos River near Antonito. It was relocated here in 1917.
Lastly, the east end of the bridge has a rare Howe timber pony truss span with cast iron connection pieces. This span was built in 1936.
The reason for the different spans on this bridge comes from various floods, including the first in 1885, and also the flood in 1911.
[Historic Bridges]