Wood Trestle On Modern Railroad?

[caldreamer]

I m running a modern bridge railroad and would like to know if a wood trestle would be appropriate on a branch through a canyon leading down to a quarry or would it have been replaced with a steel viaduct type bridge?

[Motley]

There are wood trestle bridges used by modern railroads.

See this one here: http://bridgehunter.com/co/eagle/pine-street/

[selector]

In a word, yes.  For heavy traffic, the Class Ones would have replaced virtually all of their timber trestles many decades ago on their main lines.  I believe the Canadian Pacific was replacing its last ones by 1905 or thereabouts.  Remember that by then, many had been in use for decades already.  But, right here on Vancouver Island, notably in the Cowichan Valley, there are several wooden trestles that were used up until about 20 years ago.  The same for the Alberni Sub running along the north shore of Cameron Lake just west of Parksville.  In fact, the country is still gratifyingly populated by wooden trestles on spurs and branch lines, many of them now abandoned/embargoed, and there must be the odd one in use to this day simply because their timbers and construction are of a sufficient quality and condition that they continue to pass critical engineering assessments.

Crandell

[-E-C-Mills]

Not sure if this is much help but I have seen several wooden trestles on some BNSF mains here in new mexico.  Of course, they are not very tall and its pretty dry so they probably last longer here.

[DSchmitt]

Offhand I don't know of any tall trestles, but this was a wood trestle until about 10 years ago.   The bents are still wood inside what looks like rough concrete.  It is on the Union Pacific (former Southern Pacific) main line in Marysville California.

AStreet_zpsdb06a267 by Donald Schmitt, on Flickr

 

[Rastafarr]

selector

The same for the Alberni Sub running along the north shore of Cameron Lake just west of Parksville.

Crandell, is that sub reopening with the rest of the line in 2013? Have they got a workaround for those trestles? The terrain there is nothing short of formidable, and the trestles were still visible from the highway as recently as August of last year.

Stu

[jeffrey-wimberly]

There are several timber bridges on the KCS main near to where I live. One that I know of crosses over part of Vernon Lake.

[selector]

Stu, not only is that highly unlikely due to all sorts of interference from nay-sayers locally, especially those who are dead-set against any industries like the proposed Raven Coal mine that is supposed to be a major exporter/shipper using the Alberni sub if it ever opens, but the greater outer line running north-south, the old Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway, is unlikely to open.  Despite getting grants from the feds and the Province to repair the right of way last year, a new engineering study deemed about 30 or so bridges to be unroadworthy.  The Island Corridor Foundation, which owns the right of way these days, was given even more money for a one-time repair of the bridges deemed unusable for the traffic contemplated, but now even more bridges have fallen under the engineer's rubric.  Each year that passes, as I pointed out in a letter published in the local paper five weeks ago, more and more bridges logically will come to the point where they, too, must be repaired.  This is an enterprise which barely pays its bills, begs for operating costs every six to eight years, and now can't find the money to repair or replace the numerous bridges that will have to be rectified before the next RDC runs over the rails.

It's a lost cause IMO, and I said so in the letter.  Those millions could have been put to better use.

Crandell