Rating:
9 votes

CRandIC - Iowa River Bridge (S)

Johnson County, Iowa
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Photos 

Photo taken by Jimmy J. Green

View this photo on Flickr

Map 

Street View 

Description 

This was originally the mainline of the Iowa City and Western Railroad, later the Iowa City division of the Burlington Cedar Rapids and Northern Railroad and then a minor branch of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad before the CRANDIC took over the line.

Facts 

Overview
Through truss bridge over Iowa River on CRandIC Railway
Location
Iowa City, Johnson County, Iowa
Status
Open to traffic
History
Built ca 1901
Design
Lattice and Warren truss
Dimensions
Length of largest span: 158.0 ft.
Total length: 490.0 ft.
Also called
BCR&N - Iowa River Bridge
Approximate latitude, longitude
+41.63655, -91.53462   (decimal degrees)
41°38'12" N, 91°32'05" W   (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates
15/622049/4610460 (zone/easting/northing)
USGS topographic map
Iowa City West
Inventory number
BH 49033 (Bridgehunter.com ID)

Categories 

Built 1901 (310)
Built during 1900s (4,530)
Burlington, Cedar Rapids & Northern Railway (72)
Cedar Rapids & Iowa City Railway (21)
Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad (509)
Curved (183)
Have street view (13,927)
Iowa (4,212)
Iowa City & Western Railroad (1)
Iowa City, Iowa (26)
Iowa River (88)
Johnson County, Iowa (98)
Lattice through truss (311)
 Lattice truss (344)
Open (30,150)
Owned by railroad (5,334)
Pedimented portal bracing (34)
Quadrangular lattice through truss (88)
Railroad (6,523)
Span length 125-175 feet (3,079)
Through truss (10,027)
Total length 250-500 feet (3,587)
Truss (24,728)
Warren through truss (1,055)
Warren truss (4,344)

Update Log 

  • February 21, 2014: New photos from Jack Schmidt
  • August 27, 2013: New photos from Dave King
  • August 26, 2013: New Street View added by Dave King
  • August 14, 2013: New photos from John Marvig
  • August 13, 2013: Updated by John Marvig: Added dimensions
  • May 25, 2012: Photo imported by Luke Harden
  • April 18, 2012: Photo imported by Luke Harden
  • February 20, 2012: Updated by Luke Harden: Added categories "Iowa City and Western Railroad", "Burlington, Cedar Rapids, and Northern Railroad", "Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad"
  • November 26, 2011: Updated by Luke Harden: Re-added photograph because our wonderful moderator went delete happy and didn't bother to check that this and another image were creative commons (free usage for anything but profit) listed
  • October 8, 2011: Photo imported by Luke Harden
  • August 1, 2011: New photo from Luke Harden
  • July 5, 2011: Updated by Luke Harden: added other bridge type
  • July 4, 2011: Added by Luke Harden

Sources 

  • Luke Harden - lukemh9 [at] gmail [dot] com
  • John Marvig - marvigj27 [at] gmail [dot] com
  • Dave King - DKinghawkfan [at] hotmail [dot] com
  • Jack Schmidt - jjturtle [at] earthlink [dot] net
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Comments 

CRandIC Iowa River Bridge
Posted March 10, 2013, by John Marvig (johnmarvig [at] chaska [dot] net)

When you look at the bridge, it should become rather clear that something happened. Clearly one of these spans was not originally erected here. The two completely different truss spans does give some signal of an accident, or a disaster. Just makes one wonder...

Iowa River CRANDIC Bridge
Posted August 1, 2011, by Luke Harden (lmharden [at] iastate [dot] edu)

Thank you Douglas, I will add the photograph and the historical information.

Iowa River CRANDIC Bridge
Posted August 1, 2011, by Douglas W. Jones (jones [at] cs [dot] uiowa [dot] edu)

I posted a photo of this bridge on Wikimedia Commons (to illustrate the Wikipedia entry for lattice truss bridge). The URL is:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:LatticeTrussIowaRiver.jpg

Further details about this bridge: This was originally the mainline of the Iowa City and Western Railroad, later the Iowa City division of the Burlington Cedar Rapids and Northern Railroad and then a minor branch of the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific Railroad before the CRANDIC took over the line.

The east approach to this bridge crosses the Iowa River floodway on a wooden trestle, I also photographed this and put it on the commons:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:IowaRiverFloodwayTrestle.jpg

I put these photos in the public domain (see the Wikimedia Commons copyright notices) so if anyone thinks copies should be placed in the Bridgehunter database, they're free to do so.

Iowa River CRANDIC Bridge
Posted July 5, 2011, by Robert Elder (robertelder1 [at] gmail [dot] com)

The Lattice truss looks like a possible M. Lassig product. The laced diagonals and pedimented portal bracing both indicate this. I am not seeing the porforated knee bracing, but this could have been removed at some point.

Iowa River CRANDIC Bridge
Posted July 4, 2011, by Tony Dillon (spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com)

Luke, It looks like a Warren from what I can see. The verticals in each panel may be as much for supporting the floor beams than part of the truss.

Iowa River CRANDIC Bridge
Posted July 4, 2011, by Luke Harden (lmharden [at] iastate [dot] edu)

Tony or someone should figure out what truss type the other span is, because I honestly have no clue other than it's CLEARLY a truss.