Bellows Falls Arch Bridge

Y'know, it really bothers me that they still call the modern replacement USEB (Ugly Steel Eyesore Bridge) "The Arch Bridge". Sure, the steel girders have a slight arched/curved shape to them, but continuing to call the crossing "The Arch Bridge" seem unwise at best, insulting at worst.

I saw this bridge about a month before it was demolished. I saw the news broadcast about its destruction, too. After repeated attempts to blow it up, they finally resorted to cutting through the arches with welding torches and then made a final attempt. When it went down, it fell sideways and landed in the river more or less in one piece. When the newscaster interviewed a local boy, the kid shook his head in disgust at the silliness of adults and said "They told us it was so unsafe we couldn't even walk across it."

Chester, If you can't remember where it goes, and can't find a listing here, maybe just add it as a new bridge entry with your best guess of its location... or leave the map blank on the new page. Somebody will probably recognize it. Its a really interesting bridge that deserves a page! You might also try contacting Jim Garvin, he is a historic bridge expert who lives in that neck of the woods. http://www.james-garvin.com/contactus.html

Chester, the photo you posted appears to be of a different bridge. The Bellows Falls Bridge was a much larger bridge. See the other photos.

Good find. The Internet Archive has a higher quality scan of this book and you can link to it: http://www.archive.org/stream/proceedings0834amer#page/202/m... Also, unlike Google, the good folks over at the Archive actually unfold the plan sheets in the book and scan those too. I found some beautiful measured drawings of the arch bridge here.

In researching the RR Bridge which predated the 1882 Iron Lattice which can be seen in the distance in this image, I turned up this amazingly detailed description of the construction of the Arch Bridge -

Click on the Photo and scroll around - good stuff

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Can you not use the Google Books clip feature here?

Go to > Google > More > Books > Proceedings of the American Society of Civil Engineers, Volume 34, Part 1 - 202

Shorpy posted a hi-def picture:

http://www.shorpy.com/node/10429?size=_original

This was a great looking bridge.

I remember this one from way back when.......what an absolute waste!!!

Nathan, I read a few of the other news clippings attached to your link. The bridge actually withstood FOUR (count 'em, FOUR) blast attempts to bring it down. They finally cut it apart at one end with blowtorches, & it finally fell down. And they'd closed the bridge years before for structural problems-ironic, isn't it? (no pun intended)

In case anyone was wondering how to identify a demolition project that is stupid and does nothing other than waste money and destroy history consider this bridge. So-called demolition "experts" attempted to blow this bridge up TWO TIMES with hundreds of explosives and the bridge didn't even collapse. http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=9MFaAAAAIBAJ&sjid=DFkDA...