Beaver Bridge (Ohio River)

40.693055555556 - 80.291Koordinaten: 40 ° 41 '35 " N, 80 ° 17' 27.6 " W

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Ohio River

The Beaver Bridge is a railway bridge over the Ohio River in Beaver County, Pennsylvania. The 544.7 meter long structure consists of a cantilever bridge and a short Parker carrier. She leads the Pittsburgh Subdivision of CSX between the towns of Beaver and Monaca across the river.

History

The crossing of the Ohio was one of the greatest challenges of the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad (P & LE), which built a railroad from Pittsburgh to Youngstown in 1875. The first wrought iron bridge was single track and was opened in 1878. In 1890 the railway line was extended to two tracks and built a new bridge on the existing piers. But they were too narrow for two separate tracks and so those were moved to form a Gleisverschlingung. As traffic continued to increase, the line was expanded to four tracks and it was decided to build a new bridge about 100 meters upstream.

According to the U.S. War Department requirements, the new bridge had to ensure (213 meters) wide shipping channel in the Ohio River, which was beyond the capabilities of ordinary truss bridges at least 700 feet. Therefore, we chose as the main design a steel cantilever bridge with a maximum span of 234 m. The total length of this bridge part is 429.5 m. On the north side the boom is followed by a short half-timbered with 112.8 m in length in Parker / Camelback construction.

The plans for the new bridge were published in July, 1907. The end of August fell in Canada, the Quebec Bridge, which, like the Beaver Bridge as - albeit much larger - cantilever bridge was planned. However, the railway company P & LE held on to the existing designs. The German -born engineer Albert Lucius had the preliminary plan designed, placing emphasis on a relatively simple, proven and easy to calculate construction. Paul L. Wolfel, chief engineer of the exporting company McClintic - Marshall Construction Co of Pittsburgh, completed the plans, which were reviewed by Lucius again.

Construction began in March 1908 and ended in May 1910. Spite of the rather conservative designs appeared in the journal " Engineering Record " thirteen articles on innovations that led unreinforced Betoncaissons for the bridge piers to a new construction site crane.

After the dismantling of the railway line, the Beaver Bridge today is two-pronged. Since 1991, the bridge is owned by CSX Transportation. In addition, it is registered in the Historic American Engineering Record.