UP - Osage City Bridge

I just wrote a Pic of the Week article on this bridge which is also a mystery bridge article as well. Aside from the questions I posed in my article, my biggest question is whether or not the truss bridge is still standing, judging by the pic taken in 2019. Your comments here as well as in the Chronicles page would be much appreciated. Thanks.

https://bridgehunterschronicles.wordpress.com/2021/05/10/bhc...

MoDOT provided this image of the Osage City bridge under construction.

The second span of the Osage City Bridge was completed in November 2013.

"Federal Railroad Administrator Joseph Szabo, along with representatives of the Missouri Department of Transportation, Union Pacific Railroad, Amtrak and contractor OCCI, Inc. today officially opened a new $28 million 1,200-foot railroad bridge across the Osage River - ahead of schedule and under budget. The new bridge adds capacity and targets continued improvement of on-time performance for freight trains and the AmtrakŪ Missouri River Runner trains between Kansas City and St. Louis, sponsored by the Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT).

"The new bridge, located just east of Jefferson City in Osage City, Mo., removes a major bottleneck that was caused when two tracks would funnel to one to cross the Osage River on a single-track railroad bridge, and then connect back to a double main line track. With the completion of the railroad bridge over the Osage River, the rail corridor between St. Louis and Jefferson City now consists entirely of two main line tracks.

"This new railroad bridge is yet another strategic investment in our rail infrastructure that will allow for higher performing passenger rail - while also laying a foundation to invest in faster, more frequent and even more reliable service," said Administrator Szabo. "It also advances the Midwest Regional Rail Initiative - a vision Missouri shares with eight other states to connect the Midwest's 40 largest cities with high-performance passenger rail."

https://www.uprr.com/newsinfo/releases/service/2013/1125_osa...

Sme info on the bridge being built parallel to this one:

http://www.fra.dot.gov/rpd/freight/fp_Osage_River_Bridge_and...

OOPS! I have no info regarding the old MKT bridge and its re-use. The new bridge will be new steel. The two replacement spans of the old bridge are "approach" spans and are not shown on the sketch. I apologioze for any confusion.

Looks like the hikers lost. I'm looking at drawings of new bridge plus replacing two of the spans of the old bridge.

This bridge was once a through truss with a lift span to allow steamboats to pass on the Osage River. The plate girder decks replaced the through trusses in the 1990s (or thereabouts). I haven't been there for quite a while, but I read that the UP wanted to add a second parallel bridge to eliminate a bottleneck caused by two lines from each direction having to go down to one at the bridge. They wanted to use the steel from the old MKT bridge at Boonville, but a deal by one state agency to sell the state-owned bridge at Boonville to the UP has been blocked by another agency that wants to preserve the MKT bridge for use by the Katy Trail (hike-bike trail using the old MKT right-of-way that now detours over the US 40 bridge to reach Boonville).