1894,1999 Pickering Road Bridge over Pickering Creek in Chester County PA

(Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; Satellite)

Street View, Sep 2019

Metrotrails posted

A view of the Pickering Road Bridge in Charlestown Township, Chester County Pennsylvania.

The through pony truss structure was built in 1894 by John Denithorne and the Sons of Phoenixville Pennsylvania.

It was rehabilitated in 1999, and is technically a replacement steel stringer bridge, with the trusses affixed for decoration.

One uncommon thing is that the narrowness of the road was retained during this rehabilitation, which serves as, but is almost never considered, a traffic calming device. 

It's the bridge were to be replaced and straightened, it would certainly lead to much more speeding and dangerous conditions on what is otherwise a lovely road for walking or cycling.

Metrotrails shared

HistoricBridges
[Nathan calls this replacement a rehabilitation instead of a demolition. Not only were the trusses reused, but the narrow width also retains the "feel" of the original bridge.]

2025 Bur Oak Trail Bridge over White River at Carmel, IN

(Satellite)

YouAreCurrent
The bridge opened Oct 20, 2025.
"The 500-foot [152m] span links Carmel’s Hazel Landing Park and Fishers’ Heritage Park. The bridge provides pedestrians access to three major rail trails in suburban north Indianapolis. They are Zionsville’s Big Four Rail Trail, Carmel’s Monon Greenway and Fishers’ Nickel Plate Trail."

CarmelClayParks

The $11 million project was made possible through a collaborative regional investment, with funding contributions from:

• Clay Township – $5 million through its Impact Program
• Carmel Clay Parks & Recreation – $3 million
• Hamilton County – $1.6 million
• Delaware Township – $1.3 million
• City of Fishers – $400,000

[fishersin]

I learned of this bridge while studying a flood destroying a bridge in Carmel. I think this video was taken before any of the work on the dams had begun.

2:24 video @ 1:42 via Dennis DeBruler
2026 Indy Flood: BILLIONS of Gallons Filling the Martin Marietta Surface Mine from the White River

2:24 video @ 2:13

1923-67 US-66 Bridge over Little Piney Creek at Arlington, MO

(no Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite, coordinates from BridgeHunter. I think it was further west because of the topo map below and because US-66 went through Arlington.)

I'm confused about the location because Missouri archive photo near the bottom of these notes shows a sharp curve just before the bridge, but the postcard just below does not have that curve. The topo map below shows a curve at Arlington, MO, and then a straight shot across the creek.

US-66 Overview

Postcard via BridgeHunter

Route 66 Postcards posted two photos with the comment:

Little Piney Bridge at Arlington, Missouri, Route 66, circa the 1950s.

   This photo is courtesy of 66postcards.

1

2

"Looking East. Original 1923 bridge on the right in use for EB traffic. 1952 bridges at left used for WB traffic. The original (EB) bridge was removed in 1967." Missouri State Archives via BridgeHunter

"Original Route 66 plunged downhill and turned sharply onto a railroad bridge and a five span through truss Pratt Through Truss over the Little Pinery built in 1923. This was the last section of US 66 in Missouri to be paved, completed on January 5, 1931. In 1932, the railroad bridge was replaced with a concrete slab. In 1952, Route 66 was expanded to four lanes, with a concrete girder and a Steel Girder to carry westbound traffic. The old bridge continued to carry EB I-44 until 1967. The 1952 bridges were replaced in 2005 and the 1967 bridge was re-habbed." [BridgeHunter]

I remember Arlington, MO, from when I studied the Frisco Depot. See those notes for more information of US-66.

1950/57 Newburg Quad @ 24,000 via Dennis DeBruler

1965 NS/(CNJ+Lehigh Valley) and 1924 Hill to Hill Bridges over Lehigh River in Bethlehem, PA

Railroad: (Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; Satellite)

Hill to Hill: (no Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; HAER; Satellite)

2017 photo by Royce and Bobette Haley via BridgeHunter_railroad
Looking East - Hill to Hill Bridge in background

A view of the railroad bridge from the road bridge.

Street View, Oct 2014

The steel girder span on the left is part of the railroad bridge. This shows that the Hill-to-Hill Bridge is a closed spandrel concrete arch bridge over the river. There are trusses at each end because there used to be a lot of tracks in this town.

Street View, Jul 2024

HistoricBridges_railroad
"This classic railroad truss bridge sits in the shadow of the large Hill-To-Hill Bridge. The plate girder section was rebuilt in 1965 by Bethlehem Steel Company. It is not known if Bethlehem constructed the original through truss main spans as well, nor when those original spans date to."

"Significance: The Hill-to-Hill Bridge was the first bridge to join the boroughs of the City of Bethlehem with a high-level structure eliminating all railroad grade crossings. The structure, constructed almost entirely of reinforced concrete, owed its unusual shape to the eight access ramp structures that fed traffic to the Main Bridge avoiding numerous railroad tracks." [HAER_data]

This overview shows that much of the bridge is a viaduct over the flood plain to avoid city congestion. 

HAER PA,48-BETH,17--1
1. Overall view - Hill-to-Hill Bridge, Spans Lehigh River at State Route 378, Bethlehem, Northampton County, PA

This view shows part of the viaduct that goes all the way to the ancient riverbank.

Street View, Aug 2023

E. Miller, Jan 2024

Metrotrails posted
A view from the Hill-to-Hill Bridge in Bethlehem Pennsylvania, with the rail bridge across the Lehigh River that connected the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad Bethlehem Branch with the Central Railroad of New Jersey on the north side.
Metrotrails shared

ArchivedBridgeHunter_railroad indicates that the predecessor to NS was Reading. So, was Lehigh Valley a predecessor to Reading? The topo maps label the railroad south of the river as Lehigh Valley until it is labeled Conrail.

1957/60 Allentown Quad @ 62,500

Metrotrails posted

A view at one of the accesses to the Hill-to-Hill Bridge in Bethlehem Pennsylvania.

The current Hill to Hill Bridge was completed in 1924 to replace the aged covered bridge that was constantly in need of repairs. The new bridge is a symbol of the combining of the municipalities of Bethlehem and South Bethlehem to become the City of Bethlehem. Originally, Hill to Hill Bridge had about 11 points of access. Many were cut off with the development of Rt 378.

Bridges shared

1903 BNSF/NP Bridge over Yakima River east of Thorn, WA

(Archived Bridge Hunter; Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

Frank Keller Photography posted
When I first arrived here the deer were perfectly content to watch me watch them. However as the arrival of the empty grain train grew closer I detected a wariness from the deer and figured they would be moving to another location. So while there were about a dozen before the train arrived there were about 7 remaining by the time the train arrived. Nonetheless it makes for an interesting capture on a dreary morning. Approaching Ellensburg about to cross the Yakima River. 9.18.21

2019 photo by John Bernhisel via BridgeHunter

Both photographers were in the field that is northeast of the bridge.

Satellite

1920 Germantown Dam on Twin Creek near Germantown, OH

(Satellite)

Aug 2026

The outlet tubes are full, and the water is coming out under pressure.

Facebook Reel

It looks like Ohio got some of that rain that caused record flooding in Central and Southeast Indiana.

WaterData

TheDaytonMagazine
"How the Germantown Dam is made up"
This is one of five dry dams that was built after the 1913 flood to reduce flood damage 

TheDaytonMagazine

Three c1930 photos of the dam

OhioMemory, cropped
"A conservancy road goes across the top of the dam. The dam was built to temporarily store floodwater and has no gates or permanent pool. It is 1,210 feet long and 100 feet high. There are two concrete conduits through the base of the embankment at the north abutment. The conduits are sized to discharge a peak flow during an Official Plan Flood that can be handled by the flood protection levees and channels downstream. The remainder of the floodwaters are temporarily stored behind the dam and released over time. An emergency spillway is located in a low area through the left abutment north of the dam."

At first, I could not find the spillway. But the above "An emergency spillway is located in a low area through the left abutment north of the dam." allowed me to find it.

Satellite

It appears that the 31.5' depth in the above water data chart is about twice as high as the conduit. The dam is 100' high.

mcdwater_2025
"Germantown Dam is an earthen embankment that spans 1,210 feet across Twin Creek....It’s capable of storing up to 34.55 billion gallons of floodwater and managing it through two massive conduits — each 546 feet long, 9.1 feet high, and 13 feet wide — that run through the bottom of the dam."

mcdwater_2025
[I agree that the concrete needed to be repaired.]

mcdwater_2025

It is the right descending conduit that was repaired.

dayton447now
The flood control project included 55 miles of levees and channelization of parts of the river to accommodate the full output of the conduits.

More importantly than the dam being 100' high, the spillway is about 80' high. So, a water depth of 31.5' is a rather small fraction of the reservoir since the capacity increases as the water goes up because the water spreads out over more land.

1960/62 Farmersville Quad @ 24,000

Rock Island Washed-Out Culvert in Enid, OK

(Satellite, my guess based on the topo map below.)

Note, this is old news. This was not part of the Aug 2026 flooding.

Another example of the importance of making a culvert big enough to handle a rare flash flood. If the culvert is not big enough, the embankment becomes a dam that gets overtopped.

It is common to replace a wood trestle with an embankment that covers up the trestle.

Fans of Rock Island Lines posted
Enid OK,  looks to me to be a washout after a culvert went in. I don't see anyway to get those cars there without a locomotive having made the crossing? either it crumbled as it passed or the engineer and fireman had one hell of a ride? It's not uncommon for the piles to remain buried under the berm. I always chuckle at the people on top of the cars.

Paul D. French: We had a 25 foot fill with three culverts each three times the size of the one in the photo. During a huge rain storm brush clogged the culverts. When the rear end crew walked up to the head end the water on the top of the fill was ankle deep. The whole will washed away. The crew did get the train across before the track was gone. It took a couple weeks to install a bridge.

Mike Nehring: When we filled bridge like this,we would install the culverts , fill in around the culvert up to the bottom of stringer cord, let stand for maybe 6 months to a year, then come back in & pull the stringer cord out & fill the rest in with ballast. It was totally different if it was some other factor involved. But yes that bridge/culvert washed out.

Note the contour lines that parallel the track over the creek. That indicates there was an embankment here.

1856/57 Enid Quad @ 62,500

It looks like the culvert got replaced by a bridge.

Satellite

UP now owns this route.

National Rail Network Map