1868 rail+road: (
Bridge Hunter)
1889-1986 St. Anthony: (
Bridge Hunter; HAER;
Satellite, it has been replaced)
1910-1987 road: (
Bridge Hunter) Note that there was no road bridge over the West Branch for about a year.
(According to the
Bridge Hunter index, there are still some covered bridges standing in Union County.
1868 Rail and Road
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BridgeHunter-1868 and Ron Tutt posted, a different exposure is in SusquehannaValley
"The purpose of the covering is to protect the wooden structural members from the weather. Uncovered wooden bridges typically have a lifespan of only 20 years because of the effects of rain and sun, but a covered bridge could last over 100 years. Once common, only about 1 in 10 survived the 20th century." [But he never indicated the source of that quote.]
Brian Horsch: It's a LOT cheaper and easier to replace thinner roofing and siding boards than it is to replace heavy and expensive structural members. It can also be done with minimal traffic disruption.
Alco Briargate: If you look real close, there is an open vent along the top of the siding just below the roof eaves to vent all the smoke.
Jack Dempsey: Open vents never worked all that well just to much smoke excpecially if it was double heading look at Rollins pass at the snow sheds the giant vents they had still didn't work would knock the crew out would get si bad,wake up with thier faces melted
[Remember the fad of never using capital letters? I think it was in the 1980s The text was still easily readable. But Facebook is teaching me that punctuation really is important.] |
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| BridgeHunter-1868 |
There is some confusion in the Bridge Hunter comments concerning the above image. The main bridge that we see in the image is this bridge. The bridge in the lower-right corner is the St. Anthony Bridge over Buffalo Creek.
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| 1893 Sunbury Quadrangle @ 1:62,500 |
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| SusquehannaValley, this article has several more photos including damage caused by the 1889 Johnstown flood. |
1889 St. Anthony Street Bridge over Buffalo Creek
I include this bridge because it is in the above bird's eye view and because it has a good HAER report.
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HAER PA,60-LEWB,1--3
3. VIEW OF BRIDGE ELEVATION, LOOKING SOUTHWEST - St. Anthony Street Bridge, Spanning Buffalo Creek, Legislative Route 59024, Lewisburg, Union County, PA |
1910 PA-45
I don't know why an HAER record was not made for this bridge since the destruction of other truss bridges in Pennsylvania required a record "as a mitigative measure before demolition of the structure." Once again, we can thank postcards for being the equivalent of today's selfies for tourists.
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| 1923 Postcard via BridgeHunter-1910 |
Because this bridge was closed a year before the replacement opened, there must have been some sort of emergency. But I was not able to find out what the problem was.
1912 Pennsy Railroad
There is an eighth span hiding behind the trees on the right.
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| Photo by JOM-drone, GravelCyclist and BridgeHunter, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA) |
Even thought the road bridge was pin connected, this bridge, built just two years later, uses gusset plates. Another demonstration that railroad bridges have to be stronger than road bridges.
It was abandoned ca. 1990 and bought by the Lewisburg Area Recreational Authority in 2009. Bridge Hunter comments indicate that there were plans to convert it to a trail as of 2014. But, as of this 2018 photo, nothing has happened. And an
Aug 2019 Street View shows a mass of trees and brush instead of a trail on the east side.
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| April 2018 Photo by Josh Schmid via BridgeHunter-1912, License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) |
1988 PA-45
Because this is a UCEB (Ugly Concrete Eyesore Bridge), there is no Bridge Hunter record. We can see the bridge on the right side of Josh's photo above. And thanks to a parking lot, there is enough of a break in the tree line to get glimpses of the bridge. It looks like a steel-girder bridge.
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