Red Bridge

Nathan:

That was my theory as well. Too bad most of the bridges in the catalog are long gone.

The pony in that catalog is pin-connected however. Perhaps they replaced an original pin-connected pony truss of this design "in-kind" sort-of, albeit with riveted connections.

Apparently, P.E. Lane did use pony trusses with truncated top chords as seen on this bridge.

This brochure shows a P.E. Lane Bridge over the Neosho River in Chanute, Kansas that features such pony spans:

http://historicbridges.org/indiana/darden/pelane.pdf

Source: Nathan Holth http://historicbridges.org/bridges/browser/?bridgebrowser=in...

While riveted connections were used as early as 1883 (1883 spans of the Rocks Village Bridge in MA) most examples were like that bridge found in the eastern USA. And I doubt any were continuous from that period. Not only is this pony likely an alteration, the extension of the top chord to meet the end post was likely a decorative detail. Structurally, the continuous pony has vertical end posts.

That is very possible. The USA has had some creative county engineers, so this might be another option. I have not seen anything exactly like this either.

I'm almost thinking that this pony wasn't built like this...

That it might have just been moved here and modified into the structure. Either way, it's actually very interesting!

That makes sense. I was on a mobile device and did not inspect it as close as I should have.

Well, I'm 99.5% sure that this pony was an addition. Don't think they knew what a riveted Warren even was back then. Just bizarre to think that it was basically molded into the through truss, and even the support underneath is atypical.

Leave it to P.E. Lane to think outside the box.

This was a beauty with very unique portal bracing.

Also the way that the Warren pony truss was incorporated directly into the through truss is something I haven't seen before.