I photographed this lift bridge over the Missouri River roughly a dozen years ago, shortly before I switched to digital.


added: Later on in this thread I will add photos of two other type of railroad bridge

[foxandcrow]

Really cool. You do a lot of interesting photos.

[reh321]

Really cool. You do a lot of interesting photos.

Thank you for your comment.

There had been a story about this bridge on NPR, so I made a note, and we stopped the next time we were in the area.

[blues_hawk]

I just noticed that link you put in the other thread. A synchro rail bridge!
Oddly enough, I had a grandfather that was a bridge operator, but he ran a rotary in a little place called Pungo.

[Kozlok]

Has a very film-look to it. Well done!

[reh321]

I just noticed that link you put in the other thread. A synchro rail bridge!
Oddly enough, I had a grandfather that was a bridge operator, but he ran a rotary in a little place called Pungo.

Thank you for your comment.

I believe railroad companies made a lot of bridges like this at one time. I'll try to dig through my files and find examples of rotating and "ordinary" drawbridges. I'm not sure how they decided what kind of bridge to build at each location although I believe "ordinary" drawbridges were limited by the need for a counterweight.

[reh321]

Has a very film-look to it. Well done!

Thank you for your comment

I guess I forgot to explicitly mention that this is a photo I scanned from film.

[reh321]

I photographed this lift bridge over the Missouri River roughly a dozen years ago, shortly before I switched to digital.

Here is a photo of a so-called "rolling draw bridge" along the Rhode Island shore. Instead of having all the weight born by bearings, the lower sides of the bridge are curved and the weight is born by that area. In order for reasonable motors to handle this bridge, there is a large area of counter-weight just to the left of the pivot area.

[reh321]

This is a rotating bridge over a connection between a marina and Lake Michigan. The bridge is in the fully open position in this photo; it would rotate 90 degrees counter-clockwise to allow train traffic to cross here.

[blues_hawk]

They both look like erector sets.
Don't see many steel bridges around here any more. We have a few wooden covered ones, minus one after the 1000 year flood a couple years ago completely destroyed the one time historic landmark. That flood nearly overtopped our nearby high concrete bridge over the Smith river; the old steel and wood one would have been a good 10ft under. Ironically the concrete bridge is still referred to as Iron bridge, on Iron bridge road, even though it was replaced by a curved concrete span more than 40 years ago.

[reh321]

They both look like erector sets.
Don't see many steel bridges around here any more. We have a few wooden covered ones, minus one after the 1000 year flood a couple years ago completely destroyed the one time historic landmark. That flood nearly overtopped our nearby high concrete bridge over the Smith river; the old steel and wood one would have been a good 10ft under. Ironically the concrete bridge is still referred to as Iron bridge, on Iron bridge road, even though it was replaced by a curved concrete span more than 40 years ago.

Thank you for your comments.

The first railroad bridges were made of iron. My understanding is that they had trouble crossing the Mississippi River with iron so a guy named Carnegie figured out how to make enough steel so an engineer named Eads was able to make a steel bridge at St.Louis.{note to self: find photos of Eads Bridge to add to this thread}

Once they discovered steel, most railroad bridges across water have been made of steel, because so many of them have to get out of the way of boats, and railroads don't like to go up steep slopes to bridges high above water level. Honestly, I have never seen very many railroad bridges made of concrete, even though poured concrete is a very durable building material. {note to self: find photo of concrete bridge over Des Plaines River}

[blues_hawk]

Ours is a road bridge with a built in bank. Makes me wonder if those old ones weren't really Iron after all. I had assumed steel would be used, but some of them were very old, hence the name. onder: We even still have a few rickety old open sided wooden beam bridges. They just ran the pavement right over them.

[reh321]

Ours is a road bridge with a built in bank. Makes me wonder if those old ones weren't really Iron after all. I had assumed steel would be used, but some of them were very old, hence the name. onder: We even still have a few rickety old open sided wooden beam bridges. They just ran the pavement right over them.

I know some of the bridges were iron - they look like steel, but their members are awkwardly thicker than corresponding steel bridges. I saw several when we lived in New England that must be iron, including the one below.

[blues_hawk]

Yeah that one looks beastly. I never saw our "iron bridge"(on iron bridge road. :P) but I think there may be photos of it around. My father in law had to put out at least one tire fire some punk kids(or the klan) started on it. He said he slept with a shotgun that night.