MILW - Maple River Bridge
Photos
Maple River Railroad Bridge
Looking East
Photo taken by John Marvig in June 2012
BH Photo #233228
Description
Talking to the owner, he is thrilled that he owns this bridge and wants to preserve it at all costs.Bridge was built in 1897 as a part of Bridge #Z-312 (Rock River Bridge) at Byron, Illinois. Moved to current location in 1910. This has been confirmed by blueprints, supplied by the Milwaukee Road Archives at the Milwaukee Central Library.
Facts
- Overview
- Abandoned pratt through truss bridge over Maple River on Abandoned Milwaukee Road Railroad
- Location
- Good Thunder, Blue Earth County, Minnesota
- Status
- Derelict/abandoned, possibly on private property
- History
- Built 1897, Relocated Here in 1910
- Railroad
- - Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad (MILW)
- Design
- Pratt through truss with a 45 degree skew angle
6 Spans Trestle
1-130' Skewed Pratt Truss
6 Spans Trestle - Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 130.0 ft.
Total length: 275.0 ft.
- Skew angle
- 45 degrees
- Also called
- Good Thunder Bridge
Maple River Railroad Bridge - Approximate latitude, longitude
- +43.99529, -94.05914 (decimal degrees)
43°59'43" N, 94°03'33" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/415077/4871894 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Sterling Center
- Inventory number
- BH 52653 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- February 10, 2017: New photo from John Marvig
- November 7, 2016: New photos from John Marvig
- December 7, 2012: Photo imported by Luke Harden
- August 9, 2012: Updated by Daniel Hopkins: Added category "Railroad"
- June 11, 2012: Updated by Luke Harden: Added category "Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul & Pacific Railroad"
- June 10, 2012: Added by John Marvig
Related Bridges
- MILW - Rock River Bridge (Old) (Parts reused from)
Sources
- John Marvig - marvigj27 [at] gmail [dot] com
Comments
Wanted to shoot from those angles Glenn, but the foliage was killing me. And it was about 100 degrees, plus poison ivy was bad.
Here is as I found this bridge on the afternoon of October 22nd, 2011. I have a friend who remembered seeing this bridge many years ago so we went on a search for it in Good Thunder. As large as it is, this bridge is quite well camouflaged from the road side. I was actually startled when the bridged "suddenly appeared" from the heavily wooded area we were searching intensely.
These and other of my photos can be found and mapped via Google Earth, Google Maps or Panoramio.
http://www.panoramio.com/users/mnragnar
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/mn/blue-earth/maple-river/
Had a very nice chat with the gentleman who owns this bridge. He would like to preserve it at all costs, and does his best to maintain it currently. The world needs more bridge lovers like this!