Canadian Railroads > Peace River bridge.

I stumbled accross this one in a Logan box along with some other goodies.  I must have been the tailend brakeman on this day, as usual it was a gloomy winter afternoon, March 1974.

A rare view on the BC Rail Peace River bridge south of Taylor BC. I kept no notes, judging by the empties ahead of the caboose we were north bound either on a Fort Saint John turn or perhaps on the through freight to Beatton River. This was quite an impressive wooden structure on the north end of the bridge. The main span over the river is a steel structure. I have forgotten what year, an act of vandalism and some cars including tank cars of gasoline, rolled out of Taylor siding, derailed on the wooden trestle, caught fire and destroyed the wooden portion of the bridge. The railway went to great effort and replaced this wooden span with an earthen fill. Mileages have changed on the railway and at the time of this image the bridge was at mile 715.4. At the top of this image you can see the right of way near mile 722 and the top of the 2.2 percent grade.

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Very impressive structure.

The original bridge shown here was a true  treasure.
Bob

The whole approach to the Peace River crossing seems like a huge project, winding down the grade on one side and then the curve and the bridge itself, truly rugged country, Well, the whole PGE/BCR was a huge project for that matter.

Seem to remember Trains magazine having a photo of the curved trestle on fire or perhaps being rebuilt. Whatever it was, it was the first time I had heard of a RR that far north in Canada.
t4p.

hoggerdoug Wrote:
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> I have forgotten what year, an
> act of vandalism and some cars including tank cars
> of gasoline, rolled out of Taylor siding, derailed
> on the wooden trestle, caught fire and destroyed
> the wooden portion of the bridge.

The incident occurred on October 20, 1979.

It was a road bridge briefly as well.  The Alaska Highway crosses the Peace just downstream from the railroad bridge, and the original highway bridge suffered a partial collapse in October 1957.  The PGE bridge was just recently completed (note the painting of the truss spans isn't complete yet in the picture), and so they added guardrails and decking to the rail bridge and used it as a single lane road (in addition to rail traffic) for two years while they rebuilt the highway bridge.

Two from my slide collection - photographer unknown.

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