1921 Railroad: (
Archived Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges;
Satellite)
1971 Road: (Broken Archived Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges;
Satellite, 615 photos)
Railroad
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Dave Blaze Rail Photography posted
Budd Cans On The Bridge
You can't ride these here anymore and you certainly can't do this....glad I caught the tail end of an era here. Good memories that from what feels like a lifetime ago.
A pair of classic RDCs (#s 701 & 712) on the Hurricane Turn pause on the train's namesake bridge to allow passengers to get off and walk around. As you can see a decade and a half a ago things were much more casual on the Alaska Railroad than they are now.
701 is an RDC-3 built for the New Haven Railroad in 1953 as their number 126.
712 is an RDC-3 built for the New York Central in 1953 as their number M380.
This would be the last season for the classic "Budd Cans" as the railroad's crews called them as time and the increasing popularity of this train finally caught up to them.
Hurricane, Alaska
Sunday September 7, 2008
Ken Heitzenrater shared |
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Dave Blaze Rail Photography posted
Geeps On High This was arguably my best catch ever from my secret camp spot and overlook high along the north ridge of Hurricane Gulch. While not a revenue freight train, the company work train always put on a good show usually rating classic original, built new, home road GP40-2s for power and trailing any combination of a string of ballast hoppers, side dumps, gons, flats, the depressed center car with a piece of heavy equipment or more...and always punctuated by one of the Alaska Railroad's three remaining cabooses. On this spectacular fall day it dawned clear and colorful as Frank and John and I awoke in Talkeetna and after a (nearly too!) leisurely breakfast we made the hour drive up the Parks Hwy to the trailhead and hiked in the mile. When we heard them blowing for the crossing while still trekking in it became a mad dash through the woods, and Frank damn near barrell rolled in through the brush just as engineer Gordon Larson inched slowly out over the Gulch in charge of train 591W with four matching geeps (3010, 3005, 3002, 3004) punctuated on the end by ARR 1092, an ex CN wide vision van! Located at MP 284.2, this bridge spans 918 ft and rises 296 ft above the floor below. This famous arch is arguable the signature location the on the entire ARR mainline and was the most expensive and difficult engineering project on the entirety of the railroad. The American Bridge Company started construction in early 1921, erected steel in June and finished in August. To construct the bridge, they strung an aerial tram across the gulch and construction proceeded from both sides. The first passenger train crossed Hurricane Gulch Bridge on August 15, 1921 culminating the $1,200,000 project. Hurricane, Alaska Friday September 15, 2017 |
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AlaskaRails, Photo courtesy of Anchorage Museum of History and Art, BL79.2.301
Freight train crossing Hurricane Gulch, date unknown.
Hurricane Gulch Bridge was completed in 1921. |
Southland Holdings posted three photos with the comment:
From the AB archives: 104 years ago, American Bridge Company began constructing the Hurricane Gulch Bridge in Alaska. The project involved a 918’ [180m] long deck arch railroad bridge with a 384' [117m] arch span over the gorge. The arch was erected by the cantilever method, using derrick cars so that construction could proceed from both sides simultaneously. The bridge also included two 120' deck truss spans, one 50' plate girder span, and a 240' viaduct. The bridge has an elevation of 297' [90m] above Hurricane Creek and is the longest and tallest bridge on the Alaska Railroad.
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alaska
Title taken from front. View of Alaska Engineering Commission Railway construction on railroad bridge over Hurricane Gulch, Alaska, with crane in center of photo and construction workers on bridge. Also from front: "A.E.C. G1889." An Alaska Engineering Commission photo. Photographer's number G1889. Aug. 8, 1921. Photographer: H.G.K. Original photograph size: 6 1/4" x 8 1/4". |
Road
The link for the road bridge was broke so I have just the info that is in the index.
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OnlyInYourState, Dr. Cherepanov / Google Maps, this website has a lot more photos and a drone video
"It is 558 feet [170m] long and soars over the gulch at an impressive 254 feet [77.4m] high....The railroad bridge with the same name, the Hurricane Gulch Bridge, is the tallest bridge in Alaska. For the span of a couple of years, it was actually the tallest bridge in America....That bridge also crosses over Hurricane Creek and sits 296 feet [90m] high." |
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