CSX - Sciotoville Bridge
Description
This bridge held the record for longest continuous truss span in the world from its opening until 1945. See April 2000 Trains Magazine for an article on this bridge.Facts
- Overview
- Continuous through truss bridge over the Ohio River on CSX Railroad
- Location
- Sciotodale, Scioto County, Ohio, and Greenup County, Kentucky
- Status
- Open to traffic
- History
- Built 1914-17 under the direction of Gustav Lindenthal, opened to railroad traffic July 31, 1917
- Builders
- - David B. Steinman of New York, New York (Design Engineer)
- Dravo Contracting Co. of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Gustav Lindenthal of Brno, Cisleithania, Austro-Hungarian Empire (Now known as Brno, South Moravia, Czech Republic) (Lead Engineer)
- McClintic-Marshall Co. of Chicago, Illinois & Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
- Railroads
- - CSX Railroad (CSX)
- Chesapeake & Ohio Railway (C&O; CO)
- Design
- Continuous subdivided Warren through truss bridge with deck truss approach spans (each 152.5 feet long) and plate girder viaducts (north approach 822 feet, south approach 1062 feet)
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 775.0 ft.
Total length: 3,400.0 ft. (0.6 mi.)
Deck width: 38.8 ft.
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +38.75288, -82.88577 (decimal degrees)
38°45'10" N, 82°53'09" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 17/336134/4291042 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- New Boston
- Inventory number
- BH 38455 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- February 10, 2022: New photos from Bambi Sharkoman
- November 10, 2021: New photo from Dave King
- November 29, 2011: Updated by Alexander D. Mitchell IV: More details added from magazine article mentioned
- April 4, 2010: New photos from Calvin Sneed
Related Bridges
- Hell Gate Bridge (Same design) - With a few modifications, rules of design were the same
Sources
- Colossus on the Ohio
- G Scale model
- Historicbridges.org - by Nathan Holth
- Calvin Sneed - us43137415 [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Alexander D. Mitchell IV
- Wikipedia
- Jesse Sharkoman Berube - jesseberube5 [at] gmail [dot] com
- Colossus on the Ohio - Lots of info about bridge
- Dave King - DKinghawkfan [at] hotmail [dot] com
- Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers - American Society of Civil Engineers - Google Books - Article & images
Comments
Found an article relating cameras.
http://www.progressiverailroading.com/csx_transportation/art...
Wow...my 2X Great Grandfather walked the B&O Parkersburg Branch from Parkersburg to Cairo, WV. At that time, if you needed to get somewhere, you walked the tracks - it was much easier to go through a tunnel than over a mountain.
My how times have changed.
I found two bridges in the Ohio River Valley that have very recently had extremely massive camera security added. I am talking 100 foot towers with six or eight cameras mounted and a full-size utility shed to house all the security's electrical equipment. These include the Sciotoville Railroad Bridge and also the much smaller RR bridge in Catlettsburg, Kentucky. This level of security exceeds that previously found on some INTERNATIONAL bridges.
Pictures for this magnificent bridge disappeared for some reason, so I made a special trip to it, to recapture its elegance. Truly an engineering marvel. Well worth the trip.
I have fond memories of watching "Chessie" coal trains cross this big bridge from a riverside campground on the Ohio side with my late Grandfather Walker. He knew I loved bridges and until he died in 1980, I remember him taking me in his car just to see bridges. The older cantilever in Ashland, KY. and the cantilever in Ironton-Russell were the ones we crossed the most. When I was real little, Grandpa took me over the Kennedy covered spans in, and around Rushville, IN. Let's say my love for bridges is approaching four decades, hard to believe.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/oh/scioto/sciotoville/
i find it funny and ironic how railroads stole peoples land with eminent domain and then call it trespassing if you walk on their property. Eminent domain refers to the power of the government to take private property and convert it into PUBLIC USE. Therefore the public walking across a railroad bridge or tracks is what i consider "public use". because if only private railroad companies can use it then it isnt public use it private. just as how the government stole peoples property to build the highways at least the public can use the highways for public use and same should be applied to railroads. as long as you arent putting anybody in danger or blocking a train or destroying property anybody can use the bridge or tracks.