What is a shoo-fly bridge?

[miniwyo]

Well, If its "shoofly" Then my guess would be becase the track has been shooed away from the bad bridge loke a fly that has been shooed away. Just my thought on the origins.

[edblysard]

Uhhh...
If ballast isn't crushed stone, and a culvert isn't a concrete structure....then what are they?

QUOTE: Originally posted by nanaimo73

dblstack said "They dropped in 5 culverts of 100" each. They then covered that with ballast .".That sounds fine to me.
Now your definition says "A raised structure". Ballast is not a structure.
You say "made of stone, brick, concrete, iron or steel".Ballast is not there.
You say "without disturbing or making contact with the body of water or depression beneath it".The culverts are in contact and disturbing the water and the ballast is disturbing and making contact with both the water and the depression.
dblstack has described a fill.

[CSSHEGEWISCH]

With all due respects to Ed, who has probably forgotten more about railroading than I'll ever know, I've usually seen culverts, some quite permanent, made out of sheet steel. Many are big enough to walk through while standing erect when the water is low.

Paul

[gabe]

How magnanimous . . .

[toastmaster649]

Hey folks! I'm new to this forum stuff, but I was working on the Galt derailment, and have several pics posted to a Yahoo web album, showing the damaged bridge, and the shoo fly. Once again, I'm new to this, so I don't know if this is the correct address, or if it will work
http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/toastmaster649/my_photos

if it doesn't, let me know...Thanks in advance!

[dldance]

toastmaster649 - great photos thanks

dd

[jeaton]

t649

Wot a mess. Seeing the smoke, I assume the guys sitting on the outrigger bar were roasting hot dogs. LOL

Thanks for sending the pics.

Jay

[dehusman]

A shoo-fly isn't a bridge, its the alternate route around a location. It can be on flat ground. Railroads build shoo-flies for all sorts of construction procjects. The UP and the State of KS are building a bypass around the city of Marysville. The UP has built several shoo-flies during the course of construction, to move the traffic away from the locations where the permanent tracks will be.

In the case of Galt, the fact the shoo-fly is over a body of water and several large culverts in it makes it a "bridge". If you want to argue about fairies dancing on the head of a pin and say the culverts aren''t a bridge, fine. There was a bridge there before the derailment, there was a bridge there after the derailment and the shoo-fly allowed the creek or river to flow while it was up, I say the group of culverts constitute a bridge.

Dave H.