Toledo crews are on the scene of a bridge collapse on Maumee Avenue.It is over the busy NS "Chicago" line.The contractors were working to stengthen and widen the span so NS could run a third track with proper clearance by the site.http://www.wtol.com/.../maumee-ave-bridge-collapses-city-.../
stay safe
Joe
Post was edited as it was in the Toledo not the city of Maumee.My apologies.
Deshler Ohio-crossroads of the B&O Matt eats your fries.YUM! Clinton st viaduct undefeated against too tall trucks!!!(voted to be called the "Clinton St. can opener").
So much for the engineers knowing their craft!
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
http://www.wtol.com/2019/04/03/maumee-avenue-bridge-collapses-city-crews-scene/
Turned on link for you...
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Thank you Brian.
[quote user="BaltACD"]
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=glenwood+bridge+video&view=detail&mid=C9FBD655648B016A1482C9FBD655648B016A1482&FORM=VIRE
Methinks the NS Public Projects Engineer now has ample fodder for future complaints about the condition of railroad bridges that look funny according to local political hacks. This was one of the bridges that were part of an earlier story in that neighborhood over clearances?
Too many years of deferred maintanance catching up with people?
mudchicken BaltACD So much for the engineers knowing their craft! https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=glenwood+bridge+video&view=detail&mid=C9FBD655648B016A1482C9FBD655648B016A1482&FORM=VIRE Methinks the NS Public Projects Engineer now has ample fodder for future complaints about the condition of railroad bridges that look funny according to local political hacks. This was one of the bridges that were part of an earlier story in that neighborhood over clearances?
BaltACD So much for the engineers knowing their craft!
City Engineers or NS Engineers - I have great doubt in the competence of City Engineers.
Flintlock76 Too many years of deferred maintanance catching up with people?
State sontractors were removing a 54 year old (GASP) road bridge in Colorado Springs, which collapsed onto the UP. There are two incidents on this thread. Has one has, and the other for that matter has/had nothing to do with railroad deferred maintenance or how pretty the ridge was.
Mac
With all due respect Mr. P, I was referring to municipal deferred maintanance, not railroad deferred maintanance.
As far as those municipal bridges are concerned I couldn't help thinking of a comment frequent poster Miningman made concerning bridge collapse on another thread we had on the Forum...
"The Romans could have built that bridge and it would still be there!"
I think it's almost a given the railroads take much better care of their bridges than most cities and towns around the country do.
On the subject of Toledo RR bridges, I noticed they were dismantling the old TT bridge over the Maumee alongside the Ohio Turnpike.
Flintlock76 With all due respect Mr. P, I was referring to municipal deferred maintanance, not railroad deferred maintanance. As far as those municipal bridges are concerned I couldn't help thinking of a comment frequent poster Miningman made concerning bridge collapse on another thread we had on the Forum... "The Romans could have built that bridge and it would still be there!" I think it's almost a given the railroads take much better care of their bridges than most cities and towns around the country do.
I wonder if the Roman legions broke step when they used their bridges.
Johnny
Did the Romans break step crossing bridges, kind of like we used to in the service?
Good question! Then again, considering the way they built those stone bridges they probably didn't need to.
You know, there's a lot known about the Roman legions, but a lot that isn't known. Did they march in cadence? To drum beats? To music? Did they sing or chant on the march? Did they salute, and if so, how?
Some things about armies haven't changed from Caesar's time to the present, like pack straps damn near cutting your shoulders off on a forced march, and some have.
We just don't know.
Heck around here people are wondering when the I80 bridge in Joliet is going to fail. It's last inspection report rated it a 6 in total structure strength remaining and the idiots from IDOT still are hemming and hawing about finding money for the repairs. This thing carries over 300k cars a day on it. Not something I would want to see fall over 100 feet into the river below. Hell Tennessee just lost I75 in Knoxville due to a bridge failure.
Want to see some surviving Roman bridges? Have a look...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_bridge
You know, I really hate to critisize, not being in the trade, and what do I know? But with all the tools available to them nowadays some bridge builders, especially the failures, should look at what the ancients accomplished with what they had and hang their heads in shame.
I do have to admit a bit of ethnic pride in those Romans!
And Ms. Shadow, I watched a news documentary a few years ago concerning decaying infrastructure. There was a civil engineer commenting and he said there was plenty of money allocated annually for infrastructure repair but the damn politicians (local-state-federal) keep syphoning it away for vanity projects, you know, public buildings, stadiums, parks, and other "sexy" stuff they can slap their names on to satisfy their bloated egos. Nothing sexy about infrastructure repair.
It is true? Seems to have the ring of truth to it, to me at least.
Don't even have to look to Roma - pay a visit to Lanesboro, PA and have a look at the 170 year old Starrucca Viaduct. And it's all stone.
Tunkahannock Viaduct turned 100 in 2015. It may still be able to claim the title of largest concrete structure in the world. I will say, though, that the spalling is starting to show. If you look at the ground under it, you wonder if maybe a hard hat would be appropriate.
Of course, neither of those structures has to deal with the salt that northern roadways (and thus bridges) have to deal with.
That said, most structures today (and for a fair number of years, now) are "engineered" to do the job, and for a finite lifespan. The two aforementioned bridges would likely be very different if they were to built today.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Flintlock76Want to see some surviving Roman bridges? Have a look... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_bridge You know, I really hate to critisize, not being in the trade, and what do I know? But with all the tools available to them nowadays some bridge builders, especially the failures, should look at what the ancients accomplished with what they had and hang their heads in shame. I do have to admit a bit of ethnic pride in those Romans!
In the period of time when engineers did not know the finite strength of their building materials and weren't able to calculate to the last gram the stresses their buildings and facilities are expected to withstand as well as calculating the expected decay rate of the structure - the engineers built with the strongest materials they could think of and in a way which those materials would last. The had no concept of building something for a designed life - you built it to last or you didn't build it at all.
When Eisenhower created the Interstate system legislation in 1956 - the design life they were aiming at was 50 years (note - 1956 is 63 years ago) and most of the early Interstate construction is in serious need of rebuilding (and to my mind rebuilding to a much higher standard than the 50 year life), after all 50 years crops up on you before you know it.
tree68That said, most structures today (and for a fair number of years, now) are "engineered" to do the job, and for a finite lifespan
I believe that we have had a number of "spirited" debates here over the years about bridge failure and the need for preventive maintenance to prevent corrosion damage. (The thread titled "CSX Paint your Bridge" comes to mind).
In those discussions a number of posters claimed that corrosion was a (supposedly) good thing, because it somehow created a "protective barrier" that (supposedly) shielded the steel from more severe damage.
ESPECIALLY, according to those posters, if the steel was the specially designed for the purpose "Cor-Ten" steel .
Oddly enough, I guess that Neil Young was correct after all, there are documented cases where even Cor-Ten steel failed to withstand the relentless march of corrosion:
Cor-Ten Steel failure
Flintlock-- Great stuff.. 2,000 year old bridges still in use. People say this and they say that but come on...2,000 years! Pretty pretty pretty good I tell ya. PS .. thanks for the mention.
The ATA actually did a study of the Highway Trust Fund and figured out by all the time the government workers took their shares out of the pie less than 20% of a dollar from that reached the highway for repairs. The rest went for their wages and for other things not related to highways. Things like bicycle paths bus transit systems and other ideas they have.
Never forget that the public officials and politicians who always remind us of the need to fix our crumbling infrastructure do not really want to fix it. It is a cash cow for government spending opportunities on other hobbies like public transit and trails.
It is a handy way to get into the pockets of the taxpayer. You soften them up with a big traffic jam and then come right in through their suspension systems. They fall for it every time. Bad roads are a cash cow, so they don’t want to actually fix them.
Let us not forget the Thomas Viaduct--it seems to be holding up well.
Anytime Miningman! You comment on the Romans was spot-on and people should remember it.
Convicted one, VERY interesting article about that Cor-Ten stadium. Reminded me of something I read about the 1936 Olympics.
Well, we all know who the host country was, and when Hitler was presented with the plans for the Olympic Stadium in Berlin what he saw was a proposed steel and glass, very modernistic structure. He rejected it, and directed it be buillt of masonry.
Why? As he told the architects "Look at the Collosseum in Rome. Look at all those Roman amphiteaters. Look at the Pantheon. Two thousand years old, and they're still there. Why? They were built of stone!"
Adolf wanted the stadium built to last as a monument to his Third Reich. Well, his rotten Reich is gone but the stadium is still there, and you can't see it without being reminded of who built it. I guess even a maniac can get it right sometimes.
Convicted Onen those discussions a number of posters claimed that corrosion was a (supposedly) good thing, because it somehow created a "protective barrier" that (supposedly) shielded the steel from more severe damage. ESPECIALLY, according to those posters, if the steel was the specially designed for the purpose "Cor-Ten" steel . Oddly enough, I guess that Neil Young was correct after all, there are documented cases where even Cor-Ten steel failed to withstand the relentless march of corrosion:
Cor-Ten has nothing whatsoever to do with the bridge failure that is the topic of this thread. And the quoted article does not accurately indicate what caused the failure in Atlanta; the 'real' reason lies with a different aspect of Government intervention: the removal of specific pollutants that ensured formation and then maintenance of an effective oxide layer in copper-bearing steels.
The problem is akin to chloride corrosion of certain "stainless" steels, where surprising amounts of actual orange rust can appear in a short time.
Some of these "engineers" (I like MC's term for them, 'highway bubbas') may have gotten the idea that these steels are 'noncorroding', when the actual truth is that they are supercorroding, so surface-active that they form near-instant oxide that 'self-heals' into a relatively thin layer which effectively shields the metal underneath. Chrome plate works the same way; keep eroding or compromising that thin oxide layer and you get fairly prompt disaster (as in "hard chrome" lining steam-engine cylinders, another Great Idea that when implemented with training from the wrong kind of engineering training will give you horror in short order).
Mind you, I am not complaining in the least about the removal of sulfur, for example, from the atmospheric environment. But the practice of Cor-Ten assumed its presence ... and clean-air rust wasn't as durable as polluted. Which is bad if your steel is intentionally made quick to rust...
What we might do is look at the OP bridge failure and notice some of the rather goofy details in construction, notably the very short metallic doweling that appears to be the only thing holding the cast bridge deck on the abutments. The cream of the jest is the happy survival of the handrails and their cast-beam supports, doubtless added relatively recently as part of an improvement project involving actual engineering design. I suspect it will transpire that one of the bubbas decided a nifty place to park a large piece of construction equipment was on that nice, strong-looking cast concrete deck either during work or after hours... remember what caused the initial failure of the West Side Highway decking in the mid-Seventies?
Bet the ODOT and NS are having great meetings ..
https://www.toledoblade.com/local/transportation/2019/03/03/anthony-wayne-trail-project-toledo-road-construction/stories/20190303163
Saw the headline and thought of the Maumee and Western RR :)
OvermodCor-Ten has nothing whatsoever to do with the bridge failure that is the topic of this thread.
True, but as I mentioned, it has been a frequent flyer topic in discussions here about bridge failure, usually championed by posters insisting that corrosion is not an area for concern.
FWIW, I don't believe that Cor-Ten was specifically relevant to the other bridge failures then under discussion either, but still managed to find it's way into those discussion anyway.
Please consider my contribution a submission to their body of knowledge.
Well so much for updating the bridge. New bridge will probably be much better design. Would not be surprized if NS will want a 4 track wide opening now?
blue streak 1Well so much for updating the bridge. New bridge will probably be much better design. Would not be surprized if NS will want a 4 track wide opening now?
Better or cheaper?
The PRR Rockville bridge over the Susquahanna River in Harrisburg, PA was built in 1905 and it is still as strong as the day it was built. I occasionaly go up to the lookout just north of Enola off Route 15 and watch the long NS trains roll over it. There was a coal train derailment on it a number of years ago. Did not hurt the bridge at all, A number of the coal cars dropped into the river though.
Caldreamer
caldreamer The PRR Rockville bridge over the Susquahanna River in Harrisburg, PA was built in 1905 and it is still as strong as the day it was built. I occasionaly go up to the lookout just north of Enola off Route 15 and watch the long NS trains roll over it. There was a coal train derailment on it a number of years ago. Did not hurt the bridge at all, A number of the coal cars dropped into the river though. Caldreamer
The Rockville Bridge isn't the only one.
In 1887 the PRR began a program to rebuild most of it's major bridges. Then Chief Engineer William H. Brown specified masonry instead of steel, believing masonry would be much more durable.
Two I know of are the bridge in Johnstown PA that withstood the flood of 1889, and a 1903 PRR Delaware River bridge of 18 spans between Trenton NJ and Morrisville PA. Both still there and doing what they were meant to do.
It'd be interesting to see a complete roster of PRR stone bridges still around and in use today.
caldreamerhere was a coal train derailment on it a number of years ago. Did not hurt the bridge at all, A number of the coal cars dropped into the river though.
They derailed because a portion of the bridge collapsed. And don't forget Shocks Mills downriver. Middle of that gave out during Agnes.
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
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