WBR - Winona Bridge
Photo
Overall View Of Bridge. View To Northeast
C. B. Fraser for the Historic American Engineering Record, 1985
View photos at Library of Congress
BH Photo #410664
Description
Winona's second railroad bridge was built by railroads competing with the C&NW, which owned the first bridge upstream at Downtown Winona. The Winona Bridge Railway was an independent railroad, which owned only this bridge and its approaches, and was required by its charter to allow any train across that paid the toll. Through bankruptcies and mergers, eventually the Burlington Northern, and Green Bay & Western were the only lines left paying to use it, with BN owning 2/3 of the stock and GBW owning 1/3. Due to light load limits and a deteriorating approach trestle, the bridge was closed in 1985. The swing span burned on December 17, 1989 (Photo of fire at link below), and what was left was demolished in 1990. Fortunately HAER was able to fully document it with photos taken in August 1985, just before abandonment. One of the HAER photos shows a train on the bridge.WBR apparently still exists as a corporate entity, as a subsidiary of BNSF, though it doesn't own a bridge or any track anymore. Some BN locomotives were reportedly seen carrying WBR reporting marks for a while in the 1970s and 80s.
Facts
- Overview
- Lost Through truss bridge over Mississippi River on Winona Bridge Railway
- Location
- Winona, Winona County, Minnesota, and Buffalo County, Wisconsin
- Status
- Demolished
- History
- Opened August 1, 1891; abandoned 1985; swing span burned December 17, 1989, remainder demolished 1990
- Builder
- - Union Bridge Co. of Buffalo, New York & Athens, Pennsylvania
- Railroads
- - Burlington Northern Railroad (BN)
- Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad (CBQ)
- Green Bay & Western Railroad (GB&W)
- Design
- Through truss swing span with camelback Pratt truss approach spans
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 360.0 ft.
Total length: 2,630.0 ft. (0.5 mi.)
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +44.04525, -91.60503 (decimal degrees)
44°02'43" N, 91°36'18" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/611755/4877844 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Winona East
- Inventory number
- BH 79402 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Sources
- Explain downtown trackage in Winona, MN? - trainorders.com forum explains the web of tracks through Winona and across its bridges
- Spans of Winona: Archivist discusses city's history of bridges | winonadailynews.com - Good article with a fascinating gallery of (some copyrighted) photos, including one of the swing span on fire on December 17, 1989
- Trains Magazine Forums - Winona Bridge Railway (inactive forum)
- Winona Bridge - Great (copyrighted) photo on the swing span
- Excursion train crossing Mississippi River - Great (copyrighted) photo
- Structurae - Winona Railroad Bridge
- The River Spanned - June 24, 1891 - Article in the Winona Republican
- John Weeks Highways, Byways, And Bridge Photography - Good history, description
- Roger Deschner - rogerdeschner [at] gmail [dot] com
- HAER MN-8 - Winona Bridge, Spanning Mississippi River, Winona, Winona County, MN
Comments
So, what's my deal with all these bridges in Winona MN? I've passed through three times in the past year, and each time I find another fascinating current or historical bridge. This bridge is one of the most interesting, with a complicated history and good written and photographic records. I'm sure there's yet more to find when I make it back to this picturesque old river town. Which I plan to do when the rehab of the 1942 highway bridge is complete in 2018.
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