It looks like the bridge is on the mouth of the Pend Oreille River to me. But since all the sources I found indicate it is over the lake, I'll go along with their nomenclature.
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| Steven J. Brown posted A BNSF intermodal crosses Lake Pend Oreille at Sagle, Idaho - May 15, 2004. |
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| Ian Lothian posted I've always had a ' thing ' about photographing bridges and viaducts and this was one that I had had on my things to do list for quite a while. A westbound BNSF manifest is crossing the Lake Pend'Oreille bridge with Sandpoint Idaho in the distance. |
A view from the other end:
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| Ken Edmier posted An eastbound Intermodal train crosses Lake Pend Oreille at Sandpoint, ID. 8/1/2019. |
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| Stevie Knox commented on Ian's post |
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| William Brown posted From the J Quinn Collection, it is 1973 and a BN Freight with GN GP35/SD45/F45 locomotives is crossing the bridge at Sandpoint, Idaho. A Train full of 40' Boxcars and 40' Covered Hoppers is so different from today. The second bridge is open, and this bridge has been completely rebuilt. Mixed Freight replaced by International and Domestic Intermodal, Grain Shuttles, Crude Oil Trains. only Amtrak is the same. No photographer noted. Any help appreciated. |
U.S. Coast Guard approves BNSF's Idaho rail bridge plan: RailwayAge and ProgressiveRailRoading. This federal agency was evidently the holdup because BNSF expects to begin work.
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| U.S. Coast Guard Illustration via RailwayAge |
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| Bruce Kelly via RailwayAge In June 2014, an eastbound BNSF vehicle train waits at East Algoma, Idaho, while a westbound manifest crosses the nearly mile long single-tracked bridge over Lake Pend Oreille. Sandpoint is on the other side. |
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| Deborah Lynn posted |
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| Kevin Conrad posted BNSF westbound manifest coming off of the bridge Sandpoint, ID 10-18-19 Jonathan Tuom Looks like the shoulder of Bottle Bay Road. Kevin Conrad Jonathan Tuom yes it is. Taylor Baggarley I can’t wait be their see double track. Kevin Conrad shared Kim E. Fokken what type of freight content are the boxcars generally hauling? Dennis DeBruler Paper products. I don't see many common boxcars or Railboxes anymore. But the white stripe at the top of the boxcars in this photo indicate they are hi-cube boxcars. They were developed to carry paper products more economically than a standard boxcar. In today's world of tri-level autoracks and double stacks, their height is no big deal. But when they were first introduced, I imagine that vertical clearances, especially on industrial spurs, were an issue. https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../new-freight... Kim E. Fokken Dennis DeBruler I see alot of rail box and some common box cars. I think that the use of intermodal containers, I think that has made some impact on box car use Kevin Conrad Kim E. Fokken some fine cut lumber, appliances. Kim E. Fokken Kevin Conrad how about paints, and other coating items, hardware merchandise? Stuff that would be shrink wrapped and on pallets. That kind of processing is done with intermodal containers as well like any other truck that picks up or drops off at a warehouse or distribution facility. Kevin Conrad Kim E. Fokken yes. The aluminum plant here uses railbox cars. Couldn't tell you what was in them. The newspaper warehouses receives paper.. sure there is allot. Not as much as years ago. |
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| Kevin Conrad posted BNSF Eastbound intermodal over Lake Pend Oreille, Sandpoint, ID 10-18-19 |
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| Kevin Conrad posted BNSF bridge over Lake Pend Oreille, Sandpoint, ID |
Once again, NIMBY (Not In My BackYard) complainers seem to have no credibility. "Opponents called for a more rigorous analysis via an EIS (Environmental Impact Statement). They also raised concerns about derailments jeopardizing water quality, coal dust contamination and the potential impact of increased rail traffic in the Lake Pend Oreille corridor." [RailwayAge] The new bridge should reduce the risk of derailments because some of the trains will be going across a newer bridge. The same amount of coal is going through the area independent of the number of bridges that carry it. If anything, it will reduce coal dust because coal trains won't have to set on a siding waiting their turn to cross. It will reduce the impact of traffic on the local area because the trains can go through the town rather than have to stop and wait their turn. And with the coal market plummeting, traffic is probably going to go down anyhow.
Update:
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| Art Wigton posted When the BN became a railroad seeing pictures like this was common engines in different colors. Looks like the BNSF was having the same issue. Sandpoint Idaho. Gary Dowler They were commonly called Zebra trains back in the early 70's. Any given freight might have had something like a CB&Q F-7, a Burlington Route SD-24, a SP&S C-425, a GN U-33C and an NP SD-45. Watching trains then was like opening a box of chocolates, you never knew what you were going to get. |
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| Art Wigton posted Sandpoint ID April 2011 3 BNSF C44-9W 5039 611 5479 can't take this picture again. my photo |
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| In response to a comment about the length of the bridge, Art provided this photo on his post Brian Biekofsky posted Autoracks in Idaho. You don't see almost the full length of the Lake Pend Oreille bridge very often. |
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| Georgie Li posted 11 motors are on this eastbound manifest as it crosses the bridge over Lake Pend Orielle in Sandpoint, ID Patrick Dempsey exGN or exNP? Georgie Li Patrick Dempsey the RR is ex NP. I think GN took a different routing. Sean Rotinski GN went from Hillyard-Newport and them to Sandpoint. POVAs trackage from Newport-Dover and UP from Dover-Sandpoint is the GN route north. Zack Smith Power move. John Grady Lots of weight all bunched up there on one train, if they were all on the head end. There used to be a limit on how many could be moved in a bunch like that; but, heck, that was almost 26 years ago before I retired. Matt Holden Depending on the models, that's somewhere around 50,000 horsepower! Jack Kendall I'm betting on it just being a power transfer. That much power on the front would be silly when couplers are only rated at 400,000 lbs. Unless that's changed? I'm not 100% sure on that. John Grady In the late 70's when I was dispatching power on the Frisco and ore trains were running like streetcars out of Mobile Al (AT&N owned by Frisco) I put 12 'units' on the head end of #235 out of Tennessee Yard headed to Mobile to bring 2 ore trains and #22 out a couple of night later. When they were going into the siding at Tours (just north of Holly Springs, MS) a switch problem caused 1 unit to derail. Everyone tried to say it was because of TOO MANY locomotives on the train; but it was just a piece of bad track. Anyway, this resulted in a restriction on the number of 'units' on a train; and it was 8 (I think) Karl Brand can confirm this as he probably has the timetable (I may also have it in a box out in the garage, so if I find it will confirm the correct number). We would move extra power as part of a 'consist' so it all moved from and to the roundhouse (or service track) as a unit and did not have to moved by a switch engine. We always needed more power north out of Mobile than we did coming in with empty hoppers; as one time Ray Mashburn, engineer, came into mobile with 214 empty hoppers; enough cars for almost 5 ore trains. And he did it without getting even ONE knuckle on the AT&N between York and Mobile; and that railroad is most all up and down; not much flat ground until you get south of Mt Vernon; only about 25 miles from Mobile. |
U.S. Coast Guard Green Lights Sandpoint Bridge Project
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| safe_image for BNSF Breaks Ground for Second Sandpoint Bridge |
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| safe_image for To build a train bridge [They are going to use hollow steel piles and prefabricated pier caps. The steel will be thicker than normal so that they do not have to be filled with concrete. Most of the 104' girders will be prestressed concrete. But those spans over the designated US Coast Guard navigation channel will be steel. The steel girders are shallower and provides the required vertical clearance. They will cast and pour a concrete deck that carries ballasted track. Most piles will use a vibrators. Those that are hammered will use a bubble curtain to mitigate the noise experienced by the fish. They will also use turbidity curtains. Using a bubble curtain to contain noise was developed in 2005 for the Oakland Bay Bridge construction.] |
In Sept 2020, I got hit with a Double Doomsday. Both Facebook and Google changed their software. I said "changed" instead of "updated" because the new software is not better. In fact, Google's Blogger software is far worse except for a search function that works. For example, it has three bugs concerning photos and their captions. So I'm no longer copying photos and interesting comments from Facebook. I'm just saving the link. Unfortunately, some of the links are to private groups.
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| safe_image for BNSF advances pile installations at Sandpoint Connector project |
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| safe_image for BNSF Sandpoint Bridge Enters Home Stretch After this bridge is done, more maintenance work will be done on the 1904 bridge. |
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| Photo by Bruce Kelly via RailwayAge |
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| 1 of several photos from a BNSF press release (source) "The project is completed, and the bridge officially opened on Sunday, Nov. 20, [2022,] when a BNSF train crossed the bridge for the first time. The completed bridge is 4,873 feet in length, comprised of 49 spans, 224 precast concrete girders and approximately 55,000 feet of 36-inch pipe pile." |
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| BNSF Railway posted BNSF’s inaugural train trip across the new Sandpoint Junction Connector rail bridge over Lake Pend Oreille took place Sunday, marking the last step of a multi-year project. In late 2022, BNSF Teams completed a second mainline bridge as BNSF teams continued to perform track maintenance work on the existing bridge adjacent to the new bridge. Now that maintenance on both bridges is complete, trains will run bi-directionally creating capacity, reducing congestion and helping our customers’ freight move more efficiently to and from the Pacific Northwest. Thank you to all BNSF team members who worked on this project. Photo by Bruce Kelly, courtesy of Railway Age. Trains Magazine posted a slightly different photo |
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| safe_image for How BNSF Minimized Sandpoint Bridge Project Environmental Impacts |
If you enjoy talking heads covering the usual platitudes of teamwork, safety, complex project, community improvement, environmentally friendly, etc., then this video is for you.
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