DODX - Little Piney Creek Bridge
Photos
Y connecting with Frisco
North of the river crossing the rail splits, allowing trains from the Frisco line to switch onto the army track from either direction.
Photo taken by Clark Vance in July 2015
BH Photo #333277
Facts
- Overview
- Through truss bridge over Little Piney Creek on US Army RR
- Location
- Phelps County, Missouri
- Status
- Open to traffic
- History
- Built 1902, relocated here 1941
- Builder
- - Milliken Bros. Inc. of New York City, New York
- Railroad
- - US Military Transportation Corps (DODX; USAX; USNX; DAFX)
- Design
- Skewed Warren through truss with an unusual design (Schaub Truss) combining pinned and riveted connections.
- Also called
- USAX - Little Piney Creek Bridge
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +37.91579, -91.94734 (decimal degrees)
37°54'57" N, 91°56'50" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/592527/4196994 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Newburg
- Land survey
- T. 37 N., R 9 W., Sec. 20
- Elevation
- 680 ft. above sea level
- Inventory number
- BH 68506 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- November 6, 2016: Updated by Christopher Finigan: Added categories "Pin-connected", "Riveted"
- July 22, 2015: New photos from Clark Vance
- July 21, 2015: New photos from Clark Vance
- July 14, 2015: Updated by Luke: Added category "US Army Transportation Corps"
- July 14, 2015: Added by Clark Vance
Sources
- Clark Vance - cvance [at] dogmail [dot] com
- Milliken Brothers history
Comments
John, you have outdone even yourself with this research. I need to run back down with my tape to see which of the possible spans we have.
I believe I have been able to piece together the complete history of this span using several sources:
Milliken Bros was contracted to build the following spans in 1902, including this 163' span:
https://archive.org/details/sim_enr_1902-06-26_47_supplement...
In addition, this article lists the Milliken Bros. spans as having been built between St. Louis and Monett:
https://books.google.com/books?id=5VBBAQAAMAAJ&vq=milliken&p...
This appears to be one of the unique Schaub trusses described in this article:
https://archive.org/details/sim_enr_1904-03-24_51_12/page/29...
The spur to Ft. Leonard Wood was built in 1941:
https://archive.org/details/sim_railway-age_1941-04-19_110_1...
In addition, the Frisco bridge records below shows a 164' span across the Meramec River at Moselle, which was built in 1939. Also note the two 154' spans at the other crossing of the Meramec River, which were the spans documented in the Schaub Truss article.
#3 is what it looks like when I take my contacts out ;)
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/mo/phelps/army-spur/
Google earth measures it at about 163', and with the skew, I suspect Moselle is the original location. I also did not see any other contracts with Milliken for the Frisco.
The truss itself is odd, and the article mentions that Missouri Pacific and Iowa Central also used this design. I believe those bridges are documented on this site:
http://bridgehunter.com/ks/saline/bh50245/
http://bridgehunter.com/ia/marshall/iowa-river-railroad/
http://bridgehunter.com/ia/hardin/bh51824/
http://bridgehunter.com/ia/mahaska/up-south-skunk-river/
http://bridgehunter.com/ia/poweshiek/bh55076/
It appears that the Schaub variant was only used from 1901 to about 1903. The other examples above all use riveted connections, while this span also uses pinned connections.