LRWN - Rock Creek Bridge
A Plate Girder without the Plates?
Written by Gene McCluneyThis is a curious abandoned Railroad bridge. The right-of-way of this rail line is abandoned from Danville west. This bridge crosses Rock Creek right next to Hwy 10, just west of Waveland. The railroad, which still operates East of Danville is called the Little Rock & Western, but I am unsure if this is the original owner. It might possibly originally be Rock Island.
The curious aspect of this is it has characteristics of a pony plate girder bridge, but there are no plates, making it look like some kind of truss bridge, however there are no diagonal members characteristic of truss bridges. It is possible that the "plates" were salvaged out at some time, but they would have to have been torched out.
Any additional information would be appreciated.
Facts
- Overview
- Abandoned pony/through plate girder bridge over Rock Creek on Little Rock & Western in Waveland
- Location
- Waveland, Yell County, Arkansas
- Status
- Abandoned
- History
- Very unusual style of plate-girder bridge
- Railroads
- - Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad (CRIP (1866-1920); RI (1920-1975) ROCK (1975-1980))
- Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad (CO&G)
- Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W)
- Little Rock & Western Railway (LRWN)
- Design
- Pony/through plate girder
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +35.12888, -93.66276 (decimal degrees)
35°07'44" N, 93°39'46" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/439616/3887536 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Blue Mountain
- Inventory number
- BH 39075 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- September 7, 2013: Updated by Luke Harden: Added categories "Railroad", "Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad"
- September 7, 2013: Updated by Max : Added category "Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad"
- April 17, 2010: Updated by David Backlin: Added approximate date of origin
- February 3, 2009: Essay added by Gene McCluney
Sources
- Gene McCluney - gmacfilm [at] live [dot] com
- David Backlin - us71 [at] cox [dot] net
Comments
My grandmother lived between this bridge and the other one (RR) listed here in a house no longer there. Now my aunt lives in a house sitting on the old roadbed, how weird. The bridge had sides until it was salvaged for sure. I used to throw rocks off this bridge in the 1950's. it was the Rock Island from when I went there in mid 50's until it went bankrupt. Hope this helps.
Added to Rock Island railroad category. Line used to be part of the Memphis, TN to Amarillo, TX line. Line is abandoned in some places, some are still operated by other smaller railroads.
Perhaps this bridge is functioning in a similar manner as a Vierendeel truss.
Wikipedia says it was originally the Choctaw, Oklahoma and Gulf Railroad from around 1900, then later became part of the Rock Island & Pacific RR. So that bridge probably dates to around 1900.
This is a part of the old Rock Island Choctaw Line.
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/ar/yell/rock-creek-railroad/
Was originally Choctaw, Oklahoma, and Gulf, bought by the RI in early 1900's. They rebuilt a lot of the bridges in the early 40's, not sure if this one was. Yes someone did cut the plates out as this was .75 km from my aunt's home and we have walked this part of the line to my grandmother's home in Waveland and had plates through abandonment in the 1980's.