I was able to find that Junior's
KB&S/Milwaukee/
CTH&SE Bridge spans Stony Creek.
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)
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| Via Bridge Hunter |
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| 1906 Postcard via Bridge Hunter |
CSX/Big4/P&E 1905 "The Arches" over the Salt Fork Vermilion River
(
Bridge Hunter) P&E = Peoria & Eastern
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| 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.
Trail?/Aban/CR/Big4/P&E 1922 Bridge over Conkey Branch
(
Bridge Hunter) There is a question mark after "trail" because that is currently only a plan.
CSX/C&EI 1906 Bridge over Stony Creek
(
Bridge Hunter;
3D Satellite)
Aban/NS/NKP Culvert over Newman's Creek
(
Bridge Hunter;
Satellite)
A Dam
While looking for arch bridges, I also found a fairly impressive dam.
