QUOTE: Originally posted by TheAntiGates QUOTE: Originally posted by Cheviot Hill It may have never been painted after being built. The steel manufacture does in most cases paint their steel. The bridge is then put together with the steel already painted. Seen plenty of pictures of railroad bridges being built with silver paint already on them. Cheviot Hill, I get the reference. I for one, being descended from iron workers, find your comment appalling [:D] (J/K) Anyway, that would have been L&N that had a painted bridge, right? CSX has never painted it. I just find it funny the arguments made here against doing the right thing. "Never a coat of paint there to maintain"--well obviously there was "Outside of their jurisdiction"--well evidently not in Covington, so why not elsewhere? "Cost too much"--well cost a lot less than the figures being floated around here, and in fact no more than the last "golden parachute" to leave the company... I seriously doubt that the bridge will get painted...but I don't think that the towns people are wrong for wanting it painted.....I think that CSX is being irresponsible for refusing to do it . That's my opinion, that and a buck will get me a cup of coffee. We've also seen some intentionally malicious suggestions here, implying that the town deserved to be punished or made to regret their desire to have the mess cleaned up. One of those was to paint the bridge a rust color. Just thinking about that after looking at the pictures at the links posted earlier, let me emphasize that I have no way of knowing what the towns people want, yet I'd be willing to speculate that the towns people would be delighted to have a uniform rust brown instead of the eyesore they now have. I know I would. Funny how railfans enjoy photographing new paintjobs on locomotives, and showing off those photos. Pictures of beat up and rusted over loco's bring cat calls of derision exclaiming how the engine needs to go to the paint barn.. Yet here we have a town making essentially the same argument.... about a condition they have to look at EVERY DAY, and that makes them the "bad guy"? I just don't see it.
QUOTE: Originally posted by Cheviot Hill It may have never been painted after being built. The steel manufacture does in most cases paint their steel. The bridge is then put together with the steel already painted. Seen plenty of pictures of railroad bridges being built with silver paint already on them.
QUOTE: Originally posted by Cheviot Hill QUOTE: Originally posted by TheAntiGates QUOTE: Originally posted by Cheviot Hill It may have never been painted after being built. The steel manufacture does in most cases paint their steel. The bridge is then put together with the steel already painted. Seen plenty of pictures of railroad bridges being built with silver paint already on them. Cheviot Hill, I get the reference. I for one, being descended from iron workers, find your comment appalling [:D] (J/K) Anyway, that would have been L&N that had a painted bridge, right? CSX has never painted it. I just find it funny the arguments made here against doing the right thing. "Never a coat of paint there to maintain"--well obviously there was "Outside of their jurisdiction"--well evidently not in Covington, so why not elsewhere? "Cost too much"--well cost a lot less than the figures being floated around here, and in fact no more than the last "golden parachute" to leave the company... I seriously doubt that the bridge will get painted...but I don't think that the towns people are wrong for wanting it painted.....I think that CSX is being irresponsible for refusing to do it . That's my opinion, that and a buck will get me a cup of coffee. We've also seen some intentionally malicious suggestions here, implying that the town deserved to be punished or made to regret their desire to have the mess cleaned up. One of those was to paint the bridge a rust color. Just thinking about that after looking at the pictures at the links posted earlier, let me emphasize that I have no way of knowing what the towns people want, yet I'd be willing to speculate that the towns people would be delighted to have a uniform rust brown instead of the eyesore they now have. I know I would. Funny how railfans enjoy photographing new paintjobs on locomotives, and showing off those photos. Pictures of beat up and rusted over loco's bring cat calls of derision exclaiming how the engine needs to go to the paint barn.. Yet here we have a town making essentially the same argument.... about a condition they have to look at EVERY DAY, and that makes them the "bad guy"? I just don't see it. This is a situation that I can see both sides of the argument. Maybe a court might rule on it some day. I don't know. If the bridge and the approaches get painted I can see 10 million easy. As far as the Purple bridge in Newport/Cincinnati, The state of Kentucky transfered ownership of the bridge (automobile side and walkway to the city of Newport. The railroad side was never figured into the 4 million. So I don't know what the final cost of painting the bridge was. The state of Kentucky was always responsible for their side of the bridge. It was always a funny site when only half of the bridge was painted. The railroad side looked pretty much like the Henderson kentucky bridge. Anyway CSX only paid a 5000.00 fine and never did pay for the purple paint. CSX abandoned the bridge in 1987. This is where it gets foggy with the info. From what I remember happening was the state bought or was given the railroad side. Newport was thinking of using light rail on it. Then the bridge was totally painted purple. Cincinnati didn't pay anything due to the bridge was fully owned by the railroad and the state of Kentucky. Oh Cincinnati did pay a bunch of money for decoration on the Ohio side of the bridge. Looks hideous. Anyway the old L&N bridge (Purple People Bridge) is now closed. Void of rail and automobiles. It's just for pedestrians now. It's registered as an historical site. Who knows if anything will become of the railroad side. Antigates, I've got a slightly used bus sittin' out back. if your interested let me know. (LOL)
QUOTE: Originally posted by TheAntiGates I for one, don't think that the purple is all THAT bad. It's not a color that would be my first pick .....but at least it is not a rotting eyesore . What was the reasoning behind the decision to eliminate auto traffic?
Quentin
QUOTE: Originally posted by Cheviot Hill The bridges age. I think it was built in the 1870"s. Most bridges this old have been torn down long ago. Engineers think the steel won't hold up much longer to the heavy loads that cars put on it. The railroad side of the bridge is in a lot better shape. Heavier steel. There used to be a street car line running on the outside of the bridge on the western side. Go to http://www.k8dti.com go to the links section and click on Cincinnati Transit. You"ll see the bridge in old and new pictures.
QUOTE: Originally posted by Modelcar ...Why put down the community for wanting to improve the visual environment. Doesn't sound unreasonable to me.
Probably not. According to some sources, it actually costs less to the let the bridge corrode and replace the structure, then it would cost to secure the proper permits, and handle the enviromental remidation required for painting the bridge.
How accurate this is, I don't know. But I'm inclined to believe it.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
nbrodar wrote: Probably not. According to some sources, it actually costs less to the let the bridge corrode and replace the structure, then it would cost to secure the proper permits, and handle the enviromental remidation required for painting the bridge. . Nick
Probably not. According to some sources, it actually costs less to the let the bridge corrode and replace the structure, then it would cost to secure the proper permits, and handle the enviromental remidation required for painting the bridge. .
erikthered wrote: a pretty paint job that had no functional value.
Almost two years ago I posted the following concerning bridge painting on Railfan.net:
"Here in Shreveport, LA we have two through truss bridges across the Red River. One is the former Illinois Central bridge which today is a part of the KCS Meridian Speedway, the other is a former Cotton Belt bridge which is UP today and also carries KCS trains on the line to New Orleans. Both have a swing span which except as follows were probably last opened in the 1930's. The exceptions were when they were opened several times with much fanfare in the late 1990's - 2000 time period to allow passage of the five casino riverboats which are docked here." "I am not sure of the date of their construction but both bridges are at least 80 years old. The former ICRR bridge is so old that the river has since changed course leaving only one half of the swing span over water. The stone center pier is on, and the west half of the swing span is over, dry land. The truss elements of this bridge are connected together by massive pins. Around 1966 in response to complaints from the City of Shreveport about the unsightliness of the bridge the ICRR painted the West half of the bridge gunmetal gray. They only painted to the midstream city limits of Shreveport and left the east half of the bridge which is in Bossier City its old rusty self. " "These are but two of the many ancient steel bridges on the mainlines of US RR's that have been left to rust away. I realize that these bridges were probably designed with a 2X safety factor but at some point their load carrying capability has to deteriorate to the point that they are no longer safe and are subject to collapse under the weight of todays car and engine loads."
Note: I've added the unerliing to show relevancy to the current discussions on this subject.
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I received the following reply from George Harris. For those of you who may not be familiar with George, he is a Civil Engineer with years of railway engineering experience, with the L&N early in his career, and in recent years as a consulting engineer on railroad projects all over the world. He is an authority on railroad infrastructure and you can take his words on the subject as the gospel. Here is his response to my comments:
"There are actually two answers to this." "One: There are some steels that do not flake when they rust, so the rust does not fall off and expose unoxidized steel. For these, the rusting is self limiting. For about the last 40 years, most steel railroad bridges, and a lot of highway bridges have been built with this type of steel. You will still get rust staining on the piers, but once a good coating of rust has built up, the rusting process is so slow it is virtually stopped. This steel comes under a couple of brand names, and are described by ASTM A588 (most common and I believe the oldest), A709 Grades 50W & HPS 70W, and A852. Some older bridges seem to have similar properties without actually being specified to those grades of steel." "Two: For other bridges that do not fit in the first answer: How many ways can you spell shortsighted?"
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I direct your attention to George's last words, "How many ways can you spell shortsighted?" This translates into you can save money today by not painting but are going to pay a much bigger price down the road for major repairs, replacement or even for the consequences of a complete collapse! Given the CSX "bean counter" mentality and notoriety for bare minimal ROW maintenance, their refusal to paint the bridge in question shouldn't surprise anyone. Maybe Anacostia will open their eyes but I doubt it.
Mark
TheAntiGates wrote: So, you don't think that the mentioned communities (who are desperate to get the rusting hulks in their town(s) painted, will pick up on the problem at Anacostia and try to use (conceptually) to leverage their argument?
Oh...I have no doubt they will pick up on it. I'm just saying with CSX's bean-counter mentality, it probably won't matter
KCSfan"Two: For other bridges that do not fit in the first answer: How many ways can you spell shortsighted?" **************************************************************************************** I direct your attention to George's last words, "How many ways can you spell shortsighted?" This translates into you can save money today by not painting but are going to pay a much bigger price down the road for major repairs, replacement or even for the consequences of a complete collapse! Given the CSX "bean counter" mentality and notoriety for bare minimal ROW maintenance, their refusal to paint the bridge in question shouldn't surprise anyone. Maybe Anacostia will open their eyes but I doubt it.
Given the recent interest in resurrecting old threads, I took some time to read deep into the legacy thread pile, and found this thread interresting in context with comments we are currently reading about Mantle Ridge's "results-now!" operational strategy that some describe as short-sightedness.
Wonder if Paul Hilal was born anywhere near Covington? (eg some buzzards are served best when they come home to roost cold)
It's called pickled steel. It's expensive and we used it on our coal redlers.
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