My Favorite Railroad Bridge

Pallalin wrote:

The Eads is one of my favorites.

I suspect that is the same James Eads who built the original Federal Civil War ironclad gunboat fleet?

Peter

All I've got of it - don't know why:

Bascule over Three Mile Creek, Mobile, close to where the "creek" (it's substantial) empties into the Mobile River.

Same bridge, but it's really the Terminal Rwy workers' "matched" Plymouths that made me take it. 2 -3 years ago.

https://youtu.be/JsAlzV4qSD8

I like this one!

Yep, the one and the same, hot temper and all. I believe it was one of the first long bridges to use caissons in building the piers for it, I remember that Eads was bitter at the Roeblings for using caissons on the brooklyn bridge and claimed they stole the whole idea from him (which isn't really true, the caissons that were used in the Brooklyn Bridge were much larger, and had a lot of innovations in them Eads did not have). . 

I believe they are planning to re-activate the Paulinskill viaduct (which when you come upon it is both immense and in some ways, scary) as part of the proposed Lackawanna cutoff that has been the center of some controversy for years. I don't know if they actually have given the go ahead for the project, is supposed to be a passenger line bringing people in from the Poconos and allowing them to commute to NYC, but there are those opposed to it saying it will become the route for garbage trains and oil trains and such (which isn't likely, from what I have read of that line, the grades are too high for those kind of trains). 

Mine on my old layout. Building a bigger and hopefully better one now. Don

My favorite Railroad Bridges are both part of the Philadelphia & Thorndale (P&T) Branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad.  This is the Low Grade Freight Line that Parallels the mainline (Modern day Keystone Corridor)  via a flying junction at the helper yard in Thorndale, PA to Glen Lock Interlocking and connected there to the Trenton cutoff. It was double tracked, built around 1906 and heavily engineered with these bridges and deep cuts and fills to allow fast fright to pass with very little grade or curve and free up the mainline traffic for commuter service. It was later electrified with the rest of the Pennsy in the 30s.  This is the Bridge that spans the Brandywine Creek in Downingtown  (Where I've lived my whole life).  It has no official name or even builders plates but I know it as the Trestle Bridge or the High Bridge.   

Unfortunately it was retired from use by Conrail in the late 80s so I have never seen a live train go over it I think of a GG1 or a Boxcab pulling a late night coal drag with the Pantographs sparking and the headlights shining.  It is pretty interesting to go up there and bike across these days and my recently increased interest in everything train related and wanting to start an O Gauge empire partially stemmed from a recent trip.

My Second Favorite is only miles up on the same line and is the Whitford Bridge which is a flyover of the mainline and was once featured as PRR Calendar art. It's pretty massive up close as there is a current Septa stop right under it's footing. I don't know if it's true but I read somewhere its suppossed to be the longest span single arch truss in the world (or maybe was when built).

SIRT (B&NY) AK (Arthur Kill) vertical lift bridge crossing it's namesake between Staten Island and New Jersey -

The longest railroad vertical lift bridge in the world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...Vertical_Lift_Bridge