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
- Cantilevered through truss bridge over the Ohio River at Sciotoville
- Location
- Limeville, 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
- Railroad
- - CSX Railroad (CSX)
- 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
- November 29, 2011: Updated by Alexander D. Mitchell IV: More details added from magazine article mentioned
- April 4, 2010: New photos from Calvin Sneed
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
Comments
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/
Found an article relating cameras.
http://www.progressiverailroading.com/csx_transportation/art...