Industrial History

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

1881+1913,1963 UP/C&NW/Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Bridge over St. Croix River at Hudson, WI

1913: (Archived Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; Satellite)

Mark Boettcher, Sep 2020

Mark Boettcher via HistoricBridges
In the late 1800s, much of the original bridge was filled in so that what is left is 568' (173m) long with a main span of 314' (96m).

"This bridge is strengthened and electrified in 1963." [BridgeHunter_1913]

Monday, December 9, 2024

1893,2013 Bellefontaine Bridge over Missouri River near the Mouth

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

BridgeHunter also included this HAER, but that is of a bridge in Nebraska, not Missouri!

HistoricBridges rates this bridge as 9/10 national and 10/10 locally. It is one of the few bridges left that was designed by George Morison, who Nathan calls "one of the greatest engineers in American history...who built some of the first major river, long-span metal truss bridges in America. Visit the Frisco Bridge page to learn more about Morison."

HAER MO,95-SALU.V,1--3
3. EAST WEB, SHOWING PIERS AND SHORELINE; VIEW TO NORTH - Bellefontaine Bridge, Saint Louis, Independent City, MO

HAER MO,95-SALU.V,1--31zzz
31. Photocopy of historic photograph, photographer unknown, date unknown. TRAIN PASSING THROUGH SPAN AT NORTH END OF BRIDGE

Only two of the four cut-stone piers have needed reinforcement so far.

Street View, Jul 2022

The approach on the north side is a viaduct over a flood plain. According to a comment by Al Bertram on BridgeHunter, it was rebuilt and the piers were capped around 2014.

Street View, Oct 2022

Street View, May 2013

This view shows that the flood plain does get wet.

Street View, Jul 2015
Aug 2019 and Jan 2022 also have standing water in the field.

Given that the river was high in Jul 2015, I went back and got a view of the main channel back then.

Street View, Jul 2015

safe_image for 1893: A Newly Built Railroad Bridge in Missouri Passes a Crucial Test
Photo Credit: Library of Congress
"The Bellefontaine Bridge was one of the first bridges to incorporate what is known as the Baltimore truss design."

pdf, p 6 via archive via BridgeHunter
The Bellefontaine Bridge: a report to Charles E. Perkins, president of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad [published 1894]

1949 Angostura Dam on Cheyenne River near Hot Springs, SD

(Satellite)

usbr

Angostura dam is a composite type, consisting of a concrete gravity structure and an earth embankment. The concrete portion of the dam comprises a gated spillway section located in the river channel and two non-overflow sections, one extending to the left abutment and one abutting the earth embankment extending to the right abutment. The dam has a crest length of 2,030 feet; the concrete section is 970 feet long and the earth embankment 1,060 feet long, with a structural height of 193 feet and a hydraulic height of 136 feet above the riverbed.

The spillway is an overflow section in the concrete portion of the dam, controlled by five 50- by 30-foot radial gates. Discharge capacity is 247,000 cubic feet per second. The river outlet works consists of a 4.5-foot diameter steel conduit through the concrete dam section, controlled by one 4-foot-square high-pressure slide gate in the valve house at the downstream end. Discharge capacity is 590 cubic feet per second. The main canal outlet works for irrigation water delivery consists of a 6-foot-diameter steel conduit through the concrete dam terminating in a valve house, a stilling basin, and canal headworks at the downstream end. Releases into the 290-cubic- foot-per-second-capacity canal are controlled by two 3.5-foot-square high-pressure slide gates in the valve house.

Bureau of Reclamation posted two photos with the comment:

The Angostura Dam, an embankment dam, spans across the Cheyenne River in Fall River County, located in southwestern South Dakota approximately 75 miles south of Rapid City. Comprising an earth-fill embankment and a concrete spillway section, the dam stands 193 feet high and stretches 2,030 feet long. It retains the Angostura Reservoir, which has a capacity of 195,121 acre-feet of water.
Constructed between 1946 and 1949, the dam is a component of the Angostura Division of the Pick-Sloan Missouri Basin Program and is operated by the Angostura Irrigation District.
The primary function of the dam is to store water for irrigating 12,218 acres of project lands.

This would be the outlet and canal for irrigation.

Satellite

ebay, cropped

Sunday, December 8, 2024

1963+2016 WA-520 Evergreen Point Floating Bridges over Lake Washington at Seattle, WA

1963: (Archived Bridge Hunter)

2016: (Archived Bridge Hunter; Satellite)

The bridge is 1.5 miles (2.35km) long. [BridgeHunter]

Boat View, Aug 2018

8:15 video

Same video as above

1904 W&LE Whiskey Run Viaduct and Rook Yard at Green Tree, PA

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

Yard: (Satellite)

Street View, Oct 2024

Dave Kuntz posted four photos with the comment: "Rook Yard and Trestle near Greentree PA, with the Wheeling & Lake Erie Railroad. It's a fun 10 minute downhill bike ride from my house and a painful 20 minutes uphill back!"

Phil Martin Photography posted
This is known as the Whiskey Run Viaduct. It's a long elevated rail bridge that crosses over I-376 in Scott Township Pennsylvania. It was built in 1904. Norfolk Southern and Wheeling and Lake Erie Railroad use the bridge. The bridge is almost a quarter mile long.

Nick Paranzino: Norfolk southern doesn't use this bridge, its WLE only.

Friday, December 6, 2024

1973 Foresthill Bridge over North Fork American River near Auburn, CA, has T-1 Steel

(Archived Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite, 604 photos)

"It is the highest bridge by deck height in California, the fourth highest in the United States, and among the seventy highest in the world at 730 feet (220 m) above the river." [geo]

Street View, Feb 2021

Trail View, Dec 2023

SierraNevadaGeotourism, Darin Pointer - www.ffgphotos.com
"The 2,428 foot [.74km] long span, with piers only 16 feet shorter than those of the San Francisco Golden Gate Bridge, was built at a cost of $13 million by the Bureau of Reclamation." [This text appears in quite a few of the sources. I don't know who actually wrote it.]

placer
"Inspection work is slated to begin later this [2024] summer and continue through Spring of 2025."
[It will be interesting to see how many problems they find.]

262 welds need detailed ultrasonic testing. This video also has some background information as to why T-1 steel for bridges has proven to be a problem. The testing is expected to exceed $6.9m and take 6-9 months. The average daily traffic count is 20,000, which is low enough that two lanes of traffic should be able to accommodate it. The bridge is so high because it was built for the Auburn Dam project that never happened.

12:00 video @ 9:47

This video has a weld count of 282 welds. It looks like it is the source of some of the material in the above video.

2:00 video

The 2002 xXx movie scene in which Vin Diesel drove a Corvette off this bridge.

Video

This Practical Engineering video includes a description of the proposed Auburn Dam. Construction of the dam was started. But when an earthquake happened nearby, they scrapped the plans to build this dam. This was the proposed dam.

17:06 video @ 3:09
California’s Tallest Bridge Has Nothing Underneath

@ 3:26

1932,1983+1965 US-41 Twin (Dade Park) Bridges over Ohio River between Evansville and Henderson

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

The bridge is a little over a mile (1.6km) long with a main span of 720' (219m). [HistoricBridges]

We Work the Waterways posted

Amherst Madison's M/V AMHERST witnesses another magnificent sunset above the Dade Park bridges at Mile 787 on the Ohio River.

Courtesy of Captain Charlie Neal.

Postcard via BridgeHunter

Photo via HistoricEvansville
Dade Park Bridge 1933
Audubon Memorial bridge crossing into Kentucky

Was this a predecessor bridge?

Historic Henderson posted

The steamboat Royal glides beneath the first Henderson railroad bridge, capturing a powerful moment when river travel and railroads briefly shared the spotlight along the Ohio River.

https://historichenderson.com/royal/