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West Fork River Bridge

Harrison County, West Virginia
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Photos 

West Fork River Thru Truss CR34/2

Photo taken by Brian McKee 7-4-2011

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Map 

View Uglybridges.com report

Facts 

Overview
Through truss bridge over West Fork River on CR 34/2
Location
Harrison County, West Virginia
Status
Open to traffic
History
Built 1913; rehabilitated 2006
Design
Pratt through truss
Dimensions
Length of largest span: 111.9 ft.
Total length: 224.1 ft.
Deck width: 11.5 ft.
Recognition
Eligible for the National Register of Historic Places
Approximate latitude, longitude
+39.23938, -80.35735   (decimal degrees)
39°14'22" N, 80°21'26" W   (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates
17/555460/4343538 (zone/easting/northing)
USGS topographic map
Mount Clare
Inventory number
BH 35208 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Inspection (as of 12/2010)
Deck condition rating: Excellent (9 out of 9)
Superstructure condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 64.9 (out of 100)
Average daily traffic (as of 2010)
100

Categories 

Built 1913 (507)
Built during 1910s (6,729)
Harrison County, West Virginia (82)
Interurban (122)
NR-eligible (3,749)
One-lane traffic (7,111)
Open (28,297)
Owned by state (9,804)
Pin-connected (1,519)
 Pratt through truss (3,162)
Pratt truss (5,654)
Rail-to-road (90)
Railroad (4,063)
Span length 100-125 feet (3,299)
Through truss (9,201)
Total length 175-250 feet (2,788)
Truss (23,561)
West Virginia (982)

Update Log 

  • October 20, 2012: Updated by Clark Vance: Added category "Other Interurban"
  • October 15, 2012: Updated by Luke Harden: Added categories "Railroad", "Rail-to-road"
  • July 6, 2011: New photos from Brian McKee

Sources 

  • Brian McKee - bjmckee51 [at] yahoo [dot] com
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Comments 

West Fork River Bridge
Posted October 17, 2012, by Clark Vance (cvance [at] dogmail [dot] com)

From the 1925 Clarksburg and Weston quads:

Monongahela Valley Electric ran parallel to the B&O tracks until they split at the bridge with the electric crossing the bridge and the B&O going along the east side of the creek.

They still look pretty beefy for an interurban and the fact that they don't "match" suggests reuse. The mining in the area a century ago led to a lot of trackage that's no longer present. It's likely that as lines to played out mines were taken up their bridges were moved.

See: http://www.american-rails.com/west-virginia-interurbans.html

West Fork River Bridge
Posted October 16, 2012, by Tony Dillon (spansaver [at] hotmail [dot] com)

Looks to me like one span of a traditional road bridge was paired with a repurposed railroad span.

West Fork River Bridge
Posted October 15, 2012, by Luke Harden (lmharden [at] iastate [dot] edu)

It's definitely narrow enough to be an older railroad bridge.

West Fork River Bridge
Posted October 15, 2012, by Nathan Holth (form3 [at] historicbridges [dot] org)

I am pretty sure this is originally a railroad bridge. Not only does it look like a railroad bridge, I can see remnants of the RR line on aerial imagry where the highway breaks away from the old RR alignment.