Cowan Road Bridge
Facts
- Overview
- Lost Warren pony truss bridge over Mill Creek on Cowan Road
- Location
- Ellis County, Texas
- Status
- Replaced after heavy damage likely due to an overweight vehicle
- Future prospects
- Appears to have been heavily damaged.
- History
- Built 1930; replaced 2014
- Design
- Warren pony truss with alternating verticals
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 49.9 ft.
Total length: 62.0 ft.
Deck width: 11.8 ft.
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +32.17611, -96.98917 (decimal degrees)
32°10'34" N, 96°59'21" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 14/689586/3561728 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Italy
- Average daily traffic (as of 2011)
- 10
- Inventory numbers
- TXNBI 180710AA0265001 (Texas bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
BH 32976 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection report (as of March 2013)
- Overall condition: Poor
Superstructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 17 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- February 1, 2020: Updated by Nathan Holth: Demolished and replaced.
- April 30, 2012: Updated by Tony Dillon: To be replaced per forum posting.
- February 12, 2011: New photos from Scott Wiley
Sources
- Scott Wiley - fifty [dot] fathoms [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Tony Dillon - spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com
- Nathan Holth
Comments
Looks like a new cement bridge is in place.
Appears to have been excessive over weight limit collapse.
Found a press release from Ellis County dated January 23, 2012 saying this bridge is scheduled to be replaced.
http://co.ellis.tx.us/archives/37/commissioners%20court%20re...
Looks like it had some help...if you want to call it that!
More photos
The bridge is closed. It has either collapsed or has been taken down.
Great info Anthony. Thanks!
This span appears to exhibit all elements of truss connection. The diagonal eyebars on the outer panels are pin connected at the upper chord/endpost, which are in turn joined together by gusset plates which feature rivets and bolts. The vertical/chord connections have no pins but are also joined with gusset plates riveted and bolted together.
Although many of the bolts appear to have been replaced, it is likely that this little bridge was partially riveted in the shop and then bolted together at the site.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/tx/ellis/180710AA0265001/
I was about to mention that this bridge was an interesting pinned and riveted hybrid but I noticed that Anthony had already discussed that. This is one of those bridges that gets very interesting when you start looking at fine details.