Laughery Creek Viaduct
Description
109 feet tall, 11 towers with 30 foot spans above each.One 90 ft. span. Nine 60 ft. spans and two 59 1/2 ft. spans. Stone arch abutments make up the balance of 1300 ft.Facts
- Overview
- Deck plate girder bridge over Laughery Creek on CSX Railroad (former Baltimore and Ohio Railroad)
- Location
- Ripley County, Indiana
- Status
- Open to traffic
- History
- Built ca. 1901 by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, major repair work in 1958 or 1959 with some girders replaced.
- Builder
- - Union Bridge Co. of Buffalo, New York & Athens, Pennsylvania
- Railroads
- - Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (BO)
- CSX Railroad (CSXT)
- Design
- Deck plate girder with Arched masonry abutments.
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 90.0 ft.
Total length: 1,300.0 ft.
- Also called
- B & O RR: Laughery Creek Viaduct (Historic)
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +39.13878, -85.24849 (decimal degrees)
39°08'20" N, 85°14'55" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 16/651374/4333638 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Pierceville
- Inventory number
- BH 43595 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- June 11, 2017: New photos from Tony Dillon
- April 26, 2013: Updated by Ed Hollowell: Enlarged on builder and details of spans.
- March 28, 2010: Updated by Ed Hollowell: added height
- February 6, 2010: Updated by Anthony Dillon: Added GPS coordinates
- November 8, 2009: Added by Anthony Dillon
Sources
- Tony Dillon - spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com
- Ed Hollowell - erhollowell [at] aol [dot] com
Comments
At one time this structure had Phoenix columns incorporated into it, but I believe the railroad replaced them.
photo II
Just discovered that there is this amazing 'other trestle' in Southern Indiana. Got a couple of decent shots of it.
This is a correction of my last comment, which after I reread it was ridiculous. I meant to say that this trestle was about 100 ft. longer than Shuffle Creek Trestle, not Tulip. There is an extensive article on the Laughery Creek Viaduct at http://www.borhs.org/sentinel/sentinel2010Q20510.pdf .
I Grew Up As A Teenager In Osgood, IN Just West Of This And It Was A Right Of Passage To Walk Across This, And In Some Places Whole Wooden Cross Ties Where Gone And You Had To Jump Over The Span... Some Friends Have Even Been Caught In The Middle And Had To Ride It Out Laying Down On The Service Platforms On The Sides... They Turned A Little White Afterwards...
This has been called "High Bridge" for several years by everyone in SE Indiana. Primarily due to it's towering presence over Laughery Creek. Last year I measured the height at 110 feet over the stream. The trestle has been referred to as the second tallest in the state after the Tulip in Greene County. It's a short walk (less than a 1/4 mile) east of Base Rd.in Ripley County and aprox. a half-mile south of SR 350. It's quite intimidating once you start to walk across it. I have also canoed under it in mid winter and only wished I would have photographed it from below. Trains have been seldom seen in the last few years on this once busy CSX line that prospered for over a century.
This structure is approx. 1085 feet long. That's about 100 feet longer than Tulip trestle On the Indiana Rail Road (ex Illinois Central) in Monroe County but shorter than Tulip Viaduct on the same railroad in Greene County which is the longest in Indiana at 2295 feet excluding the rail bridge at the Ohio River at Evansville which has an elevated approach to the north side of the bridge that is more than a mile long.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/in/ripley/bh43595/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faqTAVFyhBc&t=270s