NS - Little Wildcat Creek Bridge
Photos
North Side
View of where County Roads 200 S and 400 W come together looking at part of structure. Very long bridge that crosses Little Wildcat Creek as well as the Interurban that ran from Frankfort to Kokomo.
Photo taken by James Norwood
BH Photo #136576
Facts
- Overview
- Deck plate girder Bridge over Little Wildcat Creek, County 410S and a former Interurban on abandoned Norfolk Southern Railway
- Location
- West Middleton, Howard County, Indiana
- Status
- Derelict/abandoned
- History
- This unique structure was rare as it not only had a creek it crossed, but an Interurban line as well(Indiana Railroad, Frankfort and Kokomo Traction, others). Was supposedly upgraded sometime in the 1980's for future traffic.
- Railroads
- - Central Railroad of Indianapolis (CERA)
- New York, Chicago, & St. Louis Railroad (NKP)
- Norfolk Southern Railway (NS)
- Toledo, St. Louis & Western Railroad (TStL&W)
- Design
- Combination of wood decking, with 4 steel spans as well, with mix of wood piling supports and concrete. Had to be scary for train crews crossing this bridge with it's mix of building materials.
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 70.0 ft.
Total length: 305.0 ft.
- Also called
- Cloverleaf Little Wildcat Creek Bridge
NKP - Little Wildcat Creek Bridge - Approximate latitude, longitude
- +40.44495, -86.20442 (decimal degrees)
40°26'42" N, 86°12'16" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 16/567467/4477448 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Kokomo West
- Inventory number
- BH 42216 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- July 12, 2020: Updated by John Marvig: added information
- April 9, 2009: Updated by James Norwood
- April 7, 2009: Updated by James Norwood
- April 6, 2009: Updated by James Norwood
- April 5, 2009: Added by James Norwood
Sources
- James Norwood
- John Marvig - marvigj27 [at] gmail [dot] com
Comments
I might add that in late 1989, Norfolk Southern leased this line to Central Railroad of Indianapolis and they ran many freights between Marion and Frankfort via Kokomo for about 10 years when the lease was terminated and NS ran their "L89" Local over this stretch for a couple of years before rerouting it via Tipton and Alexandria to get to Marion. This line was then Embargoed and hasn't seen any traffic since. City of Kokomo removed a crossing and viaduct within their city limits around 2003, and Central Railroad has recently filed to abandon their portion to just outside Kokomo city limits. Basically Defenbaugh Road Viaduct back into town to Webster Street(one block West of Washington Street). They are open to trail use so it could see a new life. Howard County has placed "out of service" signs at every crossing from Kokomo to Howard/Clinton County line as well per recommendation by former Kokomo Mayor McKillip, an avid trail enthusiast. Railpictures.net has a video area that features scenes shot my Mr. Nelson of this bridge as CERA heads back towards Kokomo with the two Indiana Transportation Museum F7's painted in Monon Railroad colors that they used for first couple of years after taking over the old Cloverleaf and IMC lines around Kokomo. I will post a link to that site later. Jay
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/in/howard/bh42216/
For a video of a Central Railroad of Indianapolis Railroad(CERA)train going Easbound over this bridge go to this site
http://www.rail-videos.net/video/view.php?id=2851
This is a video shot by the great Kevin Nelson of Marion, Indiana. I am happy he was able to catch these views back when the bridges were still in use.
It is viewable about 45 seconds into the video. Also shows the Defenbaugh Viaduct just outside of Kokomo at the end of video. Very first small bridge may be just outside of Russiaville, but I am not sure. Every place on the video is now out of service and it's future is in question. James