Western Railroad Discussion > I Start OK, but then veer Off Topic...

This is at Painted Rock Road (MP 269), about 5 or 6 miles West of Fernley, NV.  I shot this EB local out of Sparks, and then settled in to wait on a slightly late #5.   While waiting, I got to checking out the Painted Rock Bridge...
It was the 1902 Build Date that caught my attention...   this would put it squarely in the time frame of the big Harriman improvements that modernized the SP from it's CPRR origins.  Surely this bridge was a bi-product of that project, but I wonder how, exactly?   Built by the SP directly?  Or maybe the County was given funds as some sort of mitigation that was part of the RR realignment?
Interesting*.
SR

*Well....  to me anyway.
 

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Small world. 

That was built by American Bridge Co of Elmira Heights, NY. They were a leading manufacturer of truss bridges, which they fabricated at the factory, test assembled in the yard to make sure everything fit together, and then painted. Then they disassembled the structure into its component beams, loaded it into gondolas, and sent it off to its new home. 

The plant where they did this still stands, and now builds rail equipment. Mostly light rail cars in the past, but they're currently building Viewliners for Amtrak.  Lots of pictures on TO of baggage cars, diners, and sleepers coming out of that plant, headed for a bright new career of storage in Florida. 

The small world part?  When the plant was abandoned and about to be repurposed for RR cars back in the early 1990s, I was the project manager for the hazardous waste cleanup of the old site. Seems the paint they used was (surprise, surprise) full of lead based pigments. That's why the paint lasted so long. But in the process of painting thousands of bridges, all outside, the overspray contaminated the soils of the plant, and a whole bunch of residential back yards in the surrounding neighborhood. 

And the silver paint?  Probably a post-installation job by the RR. The silver stuff is often loaded with asbestos fiber. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/21 17:27 by march_hare.

No additional info but here's the BridgeHunter page:

http://bridgehunter.com/nv/storey/B1690/

The general story goes that Harriman had connections to a bridge building company back east, when it was decided to replace the original bridges they developed a standard dimension bridge and sent the parts west. They basically filled in the sides until the bridge fit and a lot of them are still in service especially in places like the Sacramento River Canyon. The oddball bridges were often removed and moved to another location and often used for road bridges, but they're too narrow for two lanes so eventually became obsolete and were removed. Parts from some of the removed bridges can be found in MOW storage yards for repair of damaged bridges, something similar happened a few years ago although I believe they just welded up some new pieces.

The Harriman Era bridges are essentially identical to each other, there's dimensions for them in the Common Standard series of books that came out a few years ago, that's what the Central Valley model bridges were based on. There's a number of interesting books on Harriman full of all sorts of interesting details.

for example:The Life and Legend of E. H. Harriman - by Maury Klein



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/03/21 17:47 by TCnR.

The bridge marking seen in the third photo indicates the bridge is the twelfth crossing of the Truckee River.  The marking follows SP's common standard plan C.S. 11 for roadway signs first adopted in Oct. 1904 (if there wasn't an end post of a truss bridge or the end of a through girder bridge to paint such information on, then a wooden sign was used next to the bridge.  The UP's C.S. 11 plan (also first adopted in Oct. 1904) was similar except that it called for a milepost number below the "RIVER").

Stream crossing signs were sometimes used for creeks, not just for rivers.  For example, Tehachapi Creek in the Tehachapis had such signs painted on through girder bridges and on free-standing wooden signs.

 



Edited 5 time(s). Last edit at 03/05/21 14:37 by johnsweetser.