Ball Ford Bridge
Facts
- Overview
- Pratt through truss bridge over Grand River on Ball Ford Trail
- Location
- Gentry County, Missouri
- Status
- Open to traffic
- History
- Built ca. 1900; refurbished to carry road traffic sometime before 2000
- Railroad
- - Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad (CBQ)
- Design
- Pin-connected, 7-panel Pratt through truss
- Dimensions
-
Length of largest span: 150.0 ft.
Total length: 215.0 ft.
Deck width: 16.1 ft.
Vertical clearance above deck: 13.0 ft.
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +40.21100, -94.38353 (decimal degrees)
40°12'40" N, 94°23'01" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 15/382264/4452094 (zone/easting/northing)
- Quadrangle map:
- Darlington
- Land survey
- T. 63 N., R. 31 W., Sec. 34
- Elevation
- 844 ft. above sea level
- Average daily traffic (as of 2017)
- 15
- Inventory numbers
- MONBI 18355 (Missouri bridge number on the National Bridge Inventory)
MO 038-182R01.5 (Missouri off-system bridge number)
BH 21521 (Bridgehunter.com ID) - Inspection report (as of February 2017)
- Overall condition: Fair
Superstructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Substructure condition rating: Fair (5 out of 9)
Deck condition rating: Good (7 out of 9)
Sufficiency rating: 68 (out of 100)
View more at BridgeReports.com
Update Log
- August 1, 2020: New photos from Neil Krout
- August 28, 2016: New photos from John Marvig
- August 23, 2016: Updated by Christopher Finigan: Added categories "Pratt truss", "Pratt through truss", "7-panel truss"
- August 22, 2016: Updated by Christopher Finigan: Added category "Pin-connected"
- August 22, 2016: New photo from John Marvig
Sources
- John Marvig - marvigj27 [at] gmail [dot] com
- Christopher Finigan
- Neil Krout - kickinpony [dot] 66 [at] gmail [dot] com
Comments
Pictures are uploaded and information updated. Quite the find!
Good work John, thanx for sharing, sorry to hear you got stuck checking it out.
Good work! I look forward to seeing pictures.
Confirmed that this is indeed a former railroad bridge, likely dating to the turn of the century. The massive built up chords and pinned connections, as well as concrete substructures seem to imply this.
However, the bridge is tough to access. Even with a truck, I still ended up getting stuck for hours on a muddy road. Proceed with caution to this beauty..
The 1940 Darlington MO 62500 map shows the road crossing the stream immediately to the SE of the CB&Q then crossing the track on the north side of the stream. Now the road crosses over on the south bank to join the RR grade. Pretty clear that this is the RR bridge and the road bridge was removed.
I don't think the bridge at this location is the one listed in the MO Historic Bridge Inventory (Gentry 008). The bridge here is on a railroad alignment, plus another road bridge was located just downstream of the current truss. The current truss is narrow enough to be a former railroad bridge, and is also pin connected. Anyone have any input?
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/mo/gentry/18355/
I finally made it down there a couple years ago after two previous attempts failed due to "road" conditions and loose cattle. Had to park about a mile up and walk, nearly lost a boot in the mud but was mad enough by then to keep going. Thank you for update re: railroad bridge, cleared some things up for me.