BNSF/Santa Fe over Hickory Creek in Joliet, IL

(Satellite; BNSF/Santa Fe is on the left, UP/GM&O is on the right)

Why yet another still girder RR bridge? Because I was impressed by the amount of concrete used here to channelize the creek. It has natural shores at the Metra/Rock Island overpass and the dam.

Zaky Joseph posted
Two Santa Fe warbonnet b40-8Ws head west, accelerating quickly out of Joliet, Illinois on a Z-WSP STO (Willow Springs, Illinois to Stockton, California) intermodal train. 11/25/97
Nick Hart Ah, right along Chicago Street near Patterson. Nice.Dennis DeBruler Over Hickory Creek: https://www.google.com/.../data=!3m6!1e1!3m4...

You can see high-water marks on Zaky's photo and the street view.

Street View

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WACR/Boston & Maine Bridge in White River Junction

(Bridge Hunter, Satellite)

WACR = Washington County Railroad

From what little I have studied of New England railroads, it seems the B&M got split up into a lot of small pieces. Bridge Hunter indicates that Karley's comment below is wrong because this bridge is not part of the Vermont Railway.

Karley Kuehl posted two photos with the comment:

To paraphrase another report, "With no ocean coastline, Vermont might have seemed an unlikely candidate to be devastated by a hurricane" When 10 inches of rain hits a mountainous region, it's pretty scary stuff. It will be 7 years later this month that this state got a swift kick in the groin area courtesy of Mother Nature and hurricane Irene. Needless to say numerous railroad operations were crippled. The pictures are the White River crossing of Vermont Railway in White River Junction Vermont. It was closed the longest of all repairs that took place, as they ended up replacing the entire pier.

Anthony Migliaccio Classic pier scouring example. Wow
Tom Mason how does that happen?
Harley Kuehl the raging currents washed out all the rock away from the pier foundation...working for Claremont Concord RR, we had to have the bridge across the Conn River checked as well after the flood receded.

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A street view shows a remaining stone pier for this 1936 bridge and the 2011 emergency repair pier.

Street View

Satellite

I include a copy of the satellite image because I wanted to capture the water turbulence that is downstream of the original pier. Note that the axis of the turbulence is at an angle with the axis of the stone pier. That means the original piers were not built parallel to the flow of the river. That additional turbulence would increase the scour action of a flood. The new pier has a different angle so that it is parallel with the flow.

Below is a photo of an abandoned IC bridge on the Wabash River. It is another example of a pier lost because of scouring. For a while, a span had one end in the river and the other end was still on a pier. But before I could get a photo, they had removed the bad pier and the two spans it supported. In this case the pier scour was caused by a change in the river current. Notice the trees and sandbar under the swing span. Since that is where the navigation channel used to be, that was the deepest part of the river. (At the time of publication of this post, this photo is also the cover photo of the blog. But I include a copy here in case I ever change the cover photo.)

20141108 0268c

Satellite

In this satellite image, the state boundary shows the original river channel. The river cut a new channel. That is what changed the flow under the bridge. The currents have also changed under the I-64 bridge, and at least one pier on the Illinois side had (still has?) problems. So pier scour can impact more modern bridges as well as old bridges.

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A truss bridge replacement that is going to preserve the truss

(Bridge Hunter, no Historic Bridges, Satellite)

Built in 1932, to be replaced by bypass bridge by 2016 and preserved as fishing pier. [Bridge Hunter]

MDOT

Construction videos (I hope MDasphalt doesn't break this link.)

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NS/NKP 1905 and 2018 Bridges over Grand River in Painesville, OH

(Bridge Hunter, no Historic Bridges, Satellite, 3D Satellite)

Street View

Norfolk Southern Railroad is replacing a 112-year-old bridge in Painesville. Tawana Roberts — The News-Herald

Glen Anderson posted nine photos with the comment:

Norfolk Southern hired two firms in Ohio to design and build a new single track bridge in Painesville, Ohio. HDR Engineering of Cincinnati designed the new bridge and the general contractor building the bridge is Great Lakes Construction Co. of Hinckley, Ohio. The original bridge over the Grand River was built in 1904 by the Nickel Plate Road, later N&W, now Norfolk Southern. The NS line is known as the “B Line” as the mainline extends between Bellevue, Ohio, and Buffalo, N.Y. (Not to be confused with Norfolk Southern's former Southern Ry. “B Line” in Northern Virginia.) The line typically carries 10 to 15 trains daily.
The new bridge consists of 11 spans and is 1,318 feet in length. The substructure includes 10 concrete piers founded on 7-foot diameter drilled shafts. The 26 drilled shafts are between 34 and 93 feet in depth, which includes the rock socket extending into the existing shale. The new piers are made up of 6-foot diameter columns with 8 of the piers also containing reinforced concrete struts to connect the columns. The piers are up to 71 feet in height above the top of drilled shaft elevation. The bridge foundations are being drilled down to bedrock, a distance that ranges from 30 to 100 feet below ground surface.
After completion of the substructure, the superstructure began in spring of 2018. The 10-foot high steel girders are being erected in pairs with the longest spans measuring 180 feet. Two 300 ton capacity cranes will hoist the 230 ton paired girders into place. The new deck consists of precast concrete deck panels tied down to the girders. New steel walkways and inspection grating platforms will be added to the bridge for use by Norfolk Southern Railway maintenance crews. On each side of the bridge, Great Lakes will also build the 2,000-foot approaches consisting of excavation, embankment, drainage, and sub-ballast for the new track alignment across the new bridge. Norfolk Southern crews will perform the track work and cut over the existing tracks to the new alignment so that railway traffic will have access across the new bridge. Finally, the existing bridge will be demolished by Great Lakes, and the rock causeway will be removed restoring the Grand River to its natural condition by the end of 2018. (Most of the preceding was compiled from various local news and construction company sources.)
My photos of the construction progress was shot on July 30th and August 2, 2018. The first two shots were made on July 30th and are from Riverside Dr. at the east end of the project.
The two views looking up from near river level are from E. Walnut Ave./Ohio Rt. 84, which passes under the trestle. The train on the trestle is an NS westbound stack train led by a UP unit. The train caught me by surprise as I hadn't heard any warnings, but it shows the height of the trestle above the Grand River.
The final five shots show the west end of the project and was shot on August 2 from Bank Street.
Riverside High School, my Alma Mater (Class of 1967) is about a quarter mile east of the trestle and I have fond memories of glancing out a couple of classroom windows to watch trains pass when I attended there, so this is a projectof great interest to me.
Google Map showing the old trestle... https://www.google.com/…/@41.716244,-81.22812…/data=!3m1!1e3All photos © 2018 Glenn Anderson

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Note Manitowoc 2250

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Another example of man lifts reaching really high.

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Aban/CR/Penn, Trail/CSX/C&O and NS/NKP Bridges over the White River in Muncie, IN

(Penn Bridge Hunter, C&O Bridge Hunter, NKP Bridge Hunter, no Historic Bridges, 3D Satellite)
The bridges are listed in the order that we see them in the 3D Satellite Image, i.e. going upstream.

A 2009 photo that includes all three bridges. Since we are looking at the north ends, the bridges are in the "upstream order."

Quentin Mong posted
Evidence of our railroading here in Muncie, IN. Believe these bridges were taken out of use back in the early 70s. Hope I'm remembering correctly....Believe they were used by the Pennsylvania RR {Must have been trackage rights. Nearest PA. RR connection back when, was west of here at Anderson, IN. This line went north out of Muncie to Gaston. I believe the plan was for it to reach Chicago....But believe that did not happen. These twin span bridges appear they could last another 100 yrs. if the supports under them stay in place. I'm standing on another former RR bridge that is now part of a very lengthy Trail....And it's paved. Believe this was last operated by CSX...Again, back several decades ago. Amtrak traveled this route from Chicago and points southeast. Photo is looking northwest. Believe Amtrak last run thru here in the late 70s. I used to see it occasionally and some times on purpose...You know.....the railfan in us.....Our Munice station on that line was beautifully renovated when it went back into service of being a Major structure on that route as a Trail Head. I'll eventually get a photo on here of how it appears now.
Jeffrey Stoveken The bridge on which you are standing is former C & O. After C & O it was Chessie and was used by Amtrak up to 1985. I am not sure of the history of the bridge you photographed but believe you are correct that it was PRR.

Dennis DeBruler I have a map that shows the Pennsy route was a branch winding its way down from Converse, IN, through small towns to terminate at Ball Brothers. Pennsy was probably careful to use small, light diesels on this branch. That would be why an 1885 truss has not been replaced.

The Penn bridge featured in the above photo is an old (1885) pin connected bridge. But the laced eyebars indicates Pennsy did some reinforcement of the bridge. This Pennsy branch went through little towns and terminated in Muncie at the Ball Brothers plant. So probably only lighter locomotives like a GP7 used it.

Jeffrey Stoveken commented on Quentin's posting
Here's a shot of the bridge you were on with the subject of your photo beyond it. Taken by me May 5th from the White River Greenway.
[This was built in 1920.]

I couldn't find a construction date for the NKP bridge.

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US-54/Champ Clark Bridges over Mississippi River at Louisiana, MO

(1928 Truss Bridge Hunter, $68.2m Girder Bridge Hunter, Historic Bridges, John A. Weeks III, http://www.champclarkbridge.com/, Satellite)

Another through truss bridge is being lost, this time to a steel girder bridge. John reports that the bridge is structurally sound and should last at least another 30 years. Evidently Missouri can afford to replace a bridge just because the lanes are too narrow. It seems Illinois can't afford to do anything. In 2005, it was repainted from green to grey. So Missouri can also afford to throw away paint.

John A. Weeks III

Photo by Steve Lombardi, May 2018
[The new bridge is upstream.]

"One of the spans collapsed during construction and had to be rebuilt." [Historic Bridges] "This photos was taken when the bridge was being constructed. The collapse was caused by faulty false work. One worker was killed in this collapse." [Jeremy Ruble in Bridge Hunter]

On Bridge Hunter, Lisa included two photos with her comment: "First photo of the Champ Clark Bridge was taken after it collapsed on September 6th 1927. One man was killed, one was seriously injured and several narrowly escaped. The collapse of the bridge was due to faulty false work. Second photo of the bridge was taken five days before the bridge collapsed."

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History
This picture shows the span of the Champ Clark Bridge shortly before it fell in the river resulting in one fatality... Credit: Clay Logan and Ray Dolbeare

Photo taken by Jeremy Ruble, License: Released into public domain

Bridge Design

July 13, 2018 Newsletter
How many construction inspectors do you see in this picture?  Look hard...you may have to squint!  Doug Pettig with MoDOT and our photographer demonstrate just how monstrous crane is that lifts all the girders and other parts of the bridge into their places.  There are a total of six Manitowoc 7000's in the world, and Massman Construction Co. owns two.  The one at the Champ Clark Bridge was previously used on the Stan Musial Veteran's Memorial Bridge in St. Louis, and the other on the Christopher S. Bond Bridge in Kansas City.
[It is configured as a ringer crane. The girders it lifts are 140' long and weight 197,000 lbs.]

MoDOT Flickr
Here we have a pano out on the IL dock. So on both sides of the picture you are looking back onto the dock. Going from the left to the right of the picture you are turning to the right and looking downriver, then straight across the river, and then up river before returning to looking down the dock.
[By downloading the original resolution photo, 20960x3872, I was able to determine that the left crane is the 7000 ringer we saw above, the middle crane is a Manitowoc 999, and the right crane is a Manitowoc 2250.]

May 11, 2018 Newsletter
[The two forms are reusable. I wonder how they release the forms from the concrete after the concrete has set so that they can be lifted and moved to the next pier.]

May 11, 2018 Newsletter
This is an inside look at the column form and steel.  Inspectors like Joe Smith, who provided this picture, have to climb down inside the form to check the spacing between the rebar cage and the form.  "We need good spacing for the concrete to fill in around it," he explained.

MoDOT Flickr
An above view of Pier 2. We are in the middle of a pour in this picture. He have the shafts that are under the water set and drilled. He then lowered a rebar cage into the two shafts. Then we are coming through and placing concrete in the shaft. Directly below the bottom crane boom and above the red box you can see the top of the shaft. On the farthest left barge is the concrete pump and the two barges with the tugs are the concrete transports. The large buckets are loaded off the bank and barged over. Then the crane picks the bucket off the barge and workers unload the concrete into the pump truck. This then pumps the concrete through a pipe down into the shaft +80ft.
[The 999 is handling the concrete  buckets and the 2250 has the foundation drill attachment. Both cranes are on spud barges. The tall, skinny brown pipes are shoved down into the river bed to anchor the barge for work. Obviously, they are pulled up before the barge is moved to a new work location such as the next pier.]

MoDOT Flickr
Here the girder has been lifted off the truck and is being carefully maneuvered by the crane to be placed out on the barge.
[Looking at the photos below, it appears that they assemble two girders as a unit on the barge before they lift it onto a pier and the falsework to reduce the amount of fabrication work that has to be done high over the water.]

Champ Clark Bridge Replacement posted three photos with the comment:

Construction on the Champ Clark Bridge hit a significant milestone today with the erection of the first structural steel girder sections.
When complete, the bridge will be made up of 68 steel girder sections, as well as 12 concrete girders. Together, these girders will support the bridge deck, which forms the road surface.
Congrats to Massman Construction Co.and the entire project team!

[2250 is on the left end, and the 7000 is in the middle. Note the 7000 is lifting more than half of the load. because it is a stronger crane.]

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The construction web page contains a webcam with a time-laspe "button." It is interesting watching the seasons change and the ice appear.

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