Rating:
1 vote

Talcottville Main Street Bridge

Tolland County, Connecticut

Photos 

Talcottville Main Street Bridge

Overview

Photo taken by Michael Quiet in June 2016

Enlarge

BH Photo #355178

Map 

Street View 

Description 

This is an circa 1891 lenticular pony truss bridge built by the Berlin Iron Bridge Co to cross the Tankerhoosen River on Maine Street in Talcottville MA. As with the other bridges by BIBC this is made of wrought iron and is pin connected. More unique to this bridge though, is the fact that it has a 16 degree skew angle, and also has a (albeit non functional) pedestrian walkway, and even has cast iron finals, giving this bridge an elegant, although somewhat diminished, stature.

As noted the pedestrian walkway is no longer used, with no deck in place. However the cantilevered floorbeams and ornate railing are still in place, giving hope that at some point this can be rehabilitated.

The truss itself is also no longer directly load bearing, but thankfully the modification of adding load bearing stringers was done in the least invasive way possible: The roadway was raised several inches and the stringers rest on top of the original floorbeams, thus preserving the historic integrity of this bridge.

Facts 

Overview
Pin connected Lenticular pony truss bridge over Tankerhoosen River on Main Street in Talcottville
Location
Vernon, Tolland County, Connecticut
Status
Open to traffic
History
Built 1891; rehabilitated 1995
Builder
- Berlin Iron Bridge Co. of East Berlin, Connecticut
Design
Pin connected skewed Lenticular pony truss
Dimensions
Length of largest span: 67.9 ft.
Total length: 68.9 ft.
Deck width: 16.1 ft.
Skew angle
16 degrees
Recognition
Posted to the National Register of Historic Places
Approximate latitude, longitude
+41.82219, -72.49801   (decimal degrees)
41°49'20" N, 72°29'53" W   (degrees°minutes'seconds")
Approximate UTM coordinates
18/707792/4633061 (zone/easting/northing)
Quadrangle map:
Rockville
Average daily traffic (as of 2017)
20
Inventory numbers
CT 4575 (Connecticut bridge number)
BH 56224 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Inspection report (as of November 2017)
Overall condition: Poor
Superstructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Poor (4 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 49.7 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com

Categories 

19th Century (9,060)
Berlin Iron Bridge Co. (203)
Built 1891 (247)
Built during 1890s (3,279)
Connecticut (845)
Have street view (29,892)
Lenticular pony truss (105)
Lenticular truss (197)
NR-listed (3,015)
One-lane traffic (7,995)
Open (41,203)
 Owned by township (3,355)
Pin-connected (5,037)
Pony truss (17,223)
Skewed (5,071)
Span length 50-75 feet (10,549)
Tolland County, Connecticut (36)
Total length 50-75 feet (9,719)
Truss (36,746)
Vernon, Connecticut (2)
Wrought Iron (426)

Update Log 

  • June 17, 2016: Updated by Michael Quiet: Added categories "One-lane traffic", "Pin-connected", "Wrought Iron"
  • June 12, 2014: Updated by Chester Gehman: Added "Talcottville section of Vernon"
  • May 12, 2013: Added by James McCray

Sources 

  • James McCray - jamesinslocomb [at] yahoo [dot] com
  • Chester Gehman - gehmanc2000 [at] yahoo [dot] com
  • Michael Quiet - mquiet [at] gmail [dot] com
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Comments 

Talcottville Main Street Bridge
Posted May 3, 2021, by Nathan Holth (webmaster [at] historicbridges [dot] org)

Bridge to be replaced with trusses added as decorative elements. https://www.journalinquirer.com/towns/vernon/main-street-bri...

Talcottville Main Street Bridge
Posted June 17, 2016, by Michael Quiet (MQuiet [at] Gmail [dot] com)

Looks like the town is looking to repair or replace this bridge in the near future:

http://www.courant.com/community/ellington-edition/rnw-rr-ma...

The good news is that in any of the 3 scenarios they intend to retain/preserve this bridge. Of course, "preserved" means different things to different people, so we'll have to wait and see whats proposed to determine how well the plans cater to the needs of this historic span. Right now the bridge retains a very good amount of historic integrity, with the truss and floorbeams fully intact. Hopefully any future plans will maintain this.