?Previous St.Croix bridge?

[Boyd]

Anyone know the path of the bridge that preceeded the St.Croix high bridge north of Stillwater Minnesota?

[jrbernier]

Boyd,

  It was just south of the 'high' bridge.  On the WI side, there are still tall stone piers leading to the actual crossing area.  20 years ago, I was able to drive down there and see them.  There is a road(165th Ave) the leads west from Hwy 35/64, about 1/2 mile below the new crossing.  The old and new mainline connected just west of New Richmond, WI.  This link to Mapquest shows the piers for the low level crossing:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Somerset&state=WI#a/maps/l:::Somerset:WI::US:45.124401:-92.673302:city:Saint+Croix+County/m:hyb:12:45.104121:-92.749406:0::/io:0:::::f:EN:M:/e 

Jim

[Anonymous]

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?city=Stillwater&state=MN#a/maps/l:::Stillwater:MN::US:45.0564:-92.805801:city:Washington+County/m:hyb:14:45.122391:-92.743479:0::/io:0:::::f:EN:M:/e

The stone piers of the old bridge are still standing in the river.  You can see them in the center of this map view, which is about a mile south of the existing high bridge.  On the west side of the river, the old line approached, curved north, then curved about 180 degrees back south, and then curved east to meet the old bridge.  It did this looping to make the elevation drop to the old bridge, which was approx. 50 feet high, compared to the 180-foot height of the new bridge.  There was a similar looping for elevation on the east side.

[Anonymous]

Sorry for the duplication jrbernier.  Your link does show the piers of the old bridge.  I intended to show that spot, but my link goes to the existing high bridge.

[Modelcar]

....I've looked for a stone pier on the Bucyrus view, but for some reason it escapes me....??

[Anonymous]

I started at the high bridge and then scrolled south about a half mile or so to the old bridge piers, and then linked that shot.  But the link goes back to the high bridge where I started.  So go there and scroll down a bit, and you can spot the perfectly rectangular white spots in a row across the river.  Then run at an angle between west-east and northwest-southeast.

[Modelcar]

.....Ok, no problem now finding the stone piers.  I was confusing myself in the first post by seeing the state line and thinking south was up on the screen.

Easy to see the line of piers but almost impossible to follow any ROW from either end....At least it is for me.

[Anonymous]

The ROW is completely hidden in the woods in these views.  You can see the high bridge, which is apparently distorted in the photos since it is actually straight.  You can also see the shadow of the bridge to the north.  The railroad track has been mistakenly laid in on the shadow instead of the actual briddge.  You can see the west end of the bridge.  About half way between that west end and Arcola Trail N., the old ROW bisects the existing track.  At that point, the old line is running north-south.  I hiked it back in the 1970s.  As it heads down to the river, it passes through a big cut.  All the old ties were in that cut, covered with moss.  The cut had turned into a small creek with water flowing beneath the ties.

[Modelcar]

....That is really wild how the trees cover the former ROW....I've really tried to trace it where I thought it should be and  to no avail.....I noted the slight curve in the high bridge and thought it was a distorsion in the photos as other photos we've seen from the bridge deck shows it straight.....And that dotted line above the high bridge, someone did screw up on that, putting it on the shadow.

I've followed ROW's thru wooded areas that were abandoned in the 40's and one could still see it on the satelitte photos but this one...It's really hidden.