Industrial History: Arch Bridges in and near Danville, IL

Sunday, March 8, 2020

Arch Bridges in and near Danville, IL

Junior Hill posted
KB&S NB near Newell, IL, rambles across an ancient concrete arch bridge built by the CTH&SE and later used by MILW as their Southeastern Line. Line currently owned by the KBS. 9/13/2012
Dennis DeBruler Over Stoney Creek,
https://www.google.com/.../@40.1921315,-87.../data=!3m1!1e3
Bridge Hunter missed this one. That doesn't happen too often in Illinois.
https://bridgehunter.com/il/vermilion/
Junior Hill Dennis DeBruler Nice job pinpointing that one! Did u add it to bridgehunter now?
Dennis DeBruler Junior Hill I'm not a member of Bridge Hunter, just a user. But may I add your photos to my blogs?
https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../arch-bridges...
Junior Hill Dennis DeBruler Go right ahead. I'm. Gona check out bridgehunter, haven't been on there much.
Ken Morrison continues just south with a concrete arch over Poland Road (County 2200 N), then a more conventional steel bridge over the NYC Egyptian line...
Dennis DeBruler Ken Morrison https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sS...
Larry Graham Southern Indiana Ry. Chicago Southern subsidiary construction. Walsh spared no expense on engineering projects.
That post by Junior Hill got me looking at the bridges in Vermilion Cou ntry, IL.

I was able to find that Junior's KB&S/Milwaukee/CTH&SE Bridge spans Stony Creek.

3D Satellite

While looking for the bridge, I learned there are several more interesting arch bridges in the county. Near Danville, the Vermilion River branches into the North, Middle and Salt Branchs. (Why Salt instead of South?) There must have been a contractor in the area who liked building with concrete because in addition to the following railroad bridges there are several grade separation bridges constructed as concrete arches. And there are lost or abandoned arch bridges for Griffin Street over Stony Creek, Mill Street over North Fork Vermilion River, Gilbert Street over Vermilion River and Old Dam Road over Little Vermilion River.

CSX/Big4 Stone Bridge over Stony Creek

(Bridge Hunter; Satellite)

Via Bridge Hunter

1906 Postcard via Bridge Hunter

CSX/Big4/P&E 1905 "The Arches" over the Salt Fork Vermilion River

(Bridge Hunter) P&E = Peoria & Eastern

3D Satellite

1909 Postcard via Bridge Hunter

Bridge Hunter has several more construction photos and some engineering drawings

A Rocky Start
Written by Mike Roegner
Before the Salt Fork river bridge was built, Big Four trains from the Cairo Division would switch to the Wabash at Tilton, IL and use the Vermilion River bridge to cross the river to Danville Junction station. The switch to the Salt Fork River bridge was made at the beginning of January, 1906. A few weeks later the new bridge was closed to traffic and trains were again switching to the Wabash and using the Vermilion River Bridge. There was a problem with fill material on the new route sliding down the embankment into the Salt Fork River. It got so bad that tracks on the approaches were left hanging with no support. It was believed that the contractor hadn't blasted deep enough into the surrounding shale. The remedy was to bring in slag from the steel mills in the Indiana Harbor area. That was the destination of most coal trains using the new Indiana Harbor division, so it was a convenient solution.
[Bridge Hunter]

CSX/Big4/P&E 1902 Wyton over the North Fork Vermilion River

(Bridge Hunter; Satellite)
"The Largest piece of Concrete Work in the U.S." in 1902 gives us an idea of how bleeding edge concrete was at the beginning of the 20th Century and how rapidly concrete building progressed because three years later they built the above "The Arches" bridge.