WLE/B&O 1905 Benwood Bridge over the Ohio River at Bellaire, OH

(Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; HAER; see below for satellite)

WLE = Wheeling & Lake Erie Railway

Evidently it is called Benwood instead of Bellaire because B&O had their yard on the Benwood, WV side. Also, the state line is on the Ohio side of the river, so most of the truss work is in West Virginia.

Note the "ramps" on the upstream side of the piers to breakup ice flows.

Photo from HAER WVA,26-BEN,1--1 from wv0122

I saved a copy of the satellite images because of the nice shadows. I labeled these notes with bridgeArch as well as bridgeTruss because of the 1871 stone arch approach on the Bellaire, OH side. You can get a close look at sandstone arches without getting your feet wet. The route that used this approach has been abandoned.

Satellite

Satellite

Street View

Street View

C Hanchey,  License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)

Carl Venzke posted
Baltimore & Ohio Railroad, Benwood Bridge, Benwood, Marshall County, WV
Historic American Engineering Record c1968
John Slowikowski Also made Hollywood famous in the movie Unstoppable

The trusses we see today are from a reconstruction completed in 1905.

Plate XII

The reconstruction started in 1893 by replacing spans 14 and 15 with wrought iron trusses. Work continued in 1900 using "soft open-hearth steel."

I learned while studying the RR bridge at Metropolis, IL that the river men wanted a 700' navigation channel. The War Department wanted that width here, which would have required a 730' truss. The War Department would probably have agreed to the span of 589.48' that was obtainable by removing pier 11 and lengthening piers 10 and 12 per Fig 1. That option would have cost $253,500 (1905 dollars) more than using the existing masonry.

Fig 1

To achieve a 700' wide channel, a lot of pier work would have to be done in addition to the 730' truss adding $563,000 (1905 dollars) to the cost.

Fig 2

Since

• neither the War Department nor the shipping interests would help with the extra cost
• the railroad was already running heavier locomotives and freight cars on both sides of the river and their investment in the other spans was currently being wasted
• a July 14, 1862 Act of Congress approved the current pier locations

the railroad built trusses using the existing piers.

I wonder if this 300' navigation channel is now the skinniest on the Ohio River. The locks on the river have the standard width of 110'. It would seem that two-way traffic is still possible even with a narrow primary channel because the adjacent span was charted to be at least 220' wide. 

They were allowed to use falsework under Span 12, but not under Span 11. So they built Span 11 as a cantilever span. Span 12 was designed to handle the stresses of being a dead-load shore arm for Span 11 during construction as well as a live-load simple truss after construction. After the falsework was constructed under Span 12, the old span was removed and the live-load was carried by the falsework. This kept vibrations out of Span 12 and the west half of Span 11 during construction. Span 10 was not strong enough to function as a shore arm. So they built an additional truss on the outside of Span 10 to function as the shore arm. The weight of Span 12 was more than enough to offset the weight of half of Span 11. But the temporary shore arm truss around Span 10 too light, so they added counterweights to the Pier 9 end of the temporary truss.

The top cord of the old Span 11 truss was used to hold a 40-ton traveler. Before the traveler lifted members from a barge below, they would lock it down in a strong position on the old truss. Even so, they had to add temporary wooden braces to ensure that strains in the old truss members did not exceed 16,000 lb. per sq. in. I added red rectangles to the construction figure below to highlight the tie bars that were added between the top cords of the trusses so that the shore arms could hold up their halves of Span 11 until the halves were joined in the center. The new Span 11 was built around the old span so that only a dead load was supported during construction.

Plate XIV plus Paint

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Trail/BigFour+B&O Bridge over Ohio River at Louisville, IL

3D Satellite
[I saved the image because it captures the pier work
for the new part of the I-64 bridge.]

(Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges, includes videos of light shows)

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I waited for this 15-barge tow to pass under the bridge. Under the first span, you can see construction of one of the towers for the new cable-stay highway bridge.

I had to worry about getting my shoes in the mud when I took this shot.

They have built ramps on both ends to turn the bridge into a trail.

So now you can get detail shots of the riveting.

And other perspectives that would otherwise be very illegal.

Fans of the Ohio and Mississippi Railroad posted
I have to assume that this bridge was the forerunner of the BIG-4 bridge. Note the double headed engines and about a dozen cars. The approaches must have been a very steep grade.
[The B&O/Ohio & Mississippi shared a route between North Vernon, IN and Louisville, KY.]

Chris Stivers posted
Big 4 Bridge in Louisville Ky

Bill Pruehousner commented on Leo's posting
Pedestrian approach to the bridge (2015)

Glenn A Marriner posted
Here a shot my friend and me took. We're trespassing, we climbed approximately 400' straight up on the support pillars on the Kentucky side of the Ohio river in Louisville in 1998. This is looking towards Jefferson and Clarksville Indiana over the Ohio. The old Big Four CCC&SL bridge, now a foot bridge.

Brian Little posted

Chris Spear posted
The Big Four in Louisville, Ky. on fire. Now a rail trail, iirc. Not my photo.
Troy Nolen How does a rail trail burn?
Chris Bollinger That's before it became a rail trail.

Brian Patterson posted
Ben StalveyGroup Admin 4100
[The reason for including this posting is the following comment. Waterways are not only good for bulk materials, they are good for oversized loads. To transport that crane by trucks, it would have to be disassembled and then reassembled.]

Noah Schell commented on Brian's posting
I’m on that boat here’s us going down through downtown Louisville

Facebook postings: Gary Miller (colored lights at night), Raymond Noel, Ralph Berg, Michael Fromholt, Chris Kilroy, and Joseph Hoffman (16 photos).

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B&O's Colored Positional Lights

Because any remaining old style signals are going to soon be replaced to implement Positive Train Control, some railfans are taking pictures of the signals instead of trains. B&O and Pennsy were the two railroads that had their own unique design of signal heads. I have already covered Pennsy's yellow light positional design.

This is looking south along the former B&O branch line (Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton) in Deshler, OH. The tracks just on the other side of the depot is the former B&O mainline to Chicago. Both of these routes are now CSX.

20151101 5338,cropped

I cropped the above picture to make it a little easier to see that the horizontal red lights really are lit up. Also, you can see in the lower left corner that the signal head for southbound traffic on the southeast quadrant has a stop aspect.

I stepped to the side for the closeup because I was trying to reduce the effect of the sun that was still rather high in the sky. What I inadvertently did was demonstrate how well focused the searchlights are. You can see the red in the straight-on picture above, but you can't see them in the off-angle picture because they aim all of the light's energy at the oncoming locomotive. In fact, the upper lights may be lit but we can't see them because I'm too low because I'm too close. A locomotive engineer's eye would be higher and a lot further away. Since some signals, especially out west in the mountains, are just battery powered because there is no close by grid lines, it is important that the focusing of the beam allows the engineer to see the aspect even during a bright day with only a 10-watt bulb. Jon Clark's Flickr photo shows how tight the beam is. When someone posted this picture on Facebook, he labelled the indication as "Medium Approach." There were lots of comments about it is "Approach Medium." Then Tom Duffy supplied this B&LE  reference.

The "Darth Vader" (new) signals have already been installed on the mainline.

Here is another inadvertent demonstration of the tight angle of the focusing of the searchlights. Zooming in on the two signals that are on opposite sides of the track shows we can see the one in front of us but not the one on the other side. At that distance, the angle of the one on the right is rather small, but the angle is big enough to be out of the light's beam.

I violated my "no trespassing on railroad property rule and walked down an access path" to get a picture of the signal that is south of the junction. As I walked back, I did not spare the electrons.

During my July, 2015 visit to the Illinois Railway Museum, I noticed that they had constructed their signal exhibit. (On previous visits I had seen a bunch of signals lying on the ground.)

20150627 2082

Unfortunately, their display demonstrates the importance of maintenance. The left head should be showing a green light at the bottom and the right head should show a red light on the right. That is, each aspect is supposed to have two bulbs lit to show a direction as well as a color.

I had taken pictures of some other things and on my way back past these signals I discovered that they were animated. Here we see the "backslash" lunar as well as the diagonal yellow. I also did a better job of not skunking the sign behind them. The lunar indication was a permissive stop --- you can proceed past the signal at a speed slow enough that you can stop within half the distance you can see. That is, proceed but be prepared for trouble. The red indication was an absolute stop, which means you must stop at the signal and stay there until the indication changes.

Tim Wilson posted
Former B&O CPL's going to the scrap yard - March 2015

Christopher Rinker posted
Jason Lambert They are at the west end of the the bridge over 65/70 just south of Washington St
[Comments indicate that if the top bulb burned out it would be a Slow Approach Slow]

Christopher Rinker commented on his posting

Doug Howell posted, cropped
B&O CPL at Seymour, IN on the ex B&O Indiana subdivision. 12/29/2016
[CSX probably wants to tear up this track rather than update the signals. They have already torn up the route in Ohio and disabled the route in most of Illinois. This is a junction with Louisville & Indiana/Pennsy]

John Rusell posted four photos with the comment: "I happened across these CPLs on Zimmerman St in Hamilton OH." (So this is the "Hamilton" of the above referenced Cincinnati, Hamilton & Dayton. Obviously that route got extended all the way to Toledo.) Pennsy and Erie shared the CHD route through town. And NS got the Penssy rights here since CSX already had the B&O rights. Thus we see a NS locomotive on tracks that use B&O signalling. John caught all three "semaphore positions" of vertical, diagonal, and horizontal.

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[I include this closeup because you can see that they have prepared a foundation for the replacement signal. Once I spotted that, I notice there is one on the right of the first photo also.]

Mike's photo below is a reminder that B&O bought the Chicago & Alton in 1931 and renamed it the Alton Railroad. In 1947 the Alton merged with Gulf, Mobile & Ohio. [Industrial Scenery] Obviously B&O upgraded the signaling because you can see the red aspect of a B&O's signalling head over the right-side of the caboose cupola. This March 8, 1976, photo shows the 1972 ICG merger is pooling the power of IC and GM&O but hasn't had a chance yet to repaint the IC equipment in the ICG livery.

Photo from Mike Matalis, I  believe this is east of  the Page Bascule Bridge over "Bubbly Creek" looking 

Joe Garnett posted two photos with the comment:

Soon to be gone, these old N&W CPL's are quickly becoming history. These are located between Abilene and Crewe, VA on the Blue Ridge District. NS crews were working diligently the day I was down there ( a week ago today) on getting the replacements ready.

[I was not aware that railroads other than B&O used CPL.]

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Patrick O'Connor posted heads that have all four aspects (i.e. includes "backslash").

Michael Rogan posted four photos.

Josh Kellerman posted nine photos, including one still using blades.

Larry Wojcik posted a video of the lights changing.

Mark Kubala posted a signal guarding the CSX/B&O vs. NS/PRR crossing on the east side of Attica Junction, OH.

0140627 2080. 

Another signal head design has a unique position for each color. But the lights are so close to each other that the position doesn't mean much. This is more like an older version of today's "tri-light" signals.

I came across a photo that had all three colors displayed so that we can determine green was upper-right, yellow was upper-left, and red was at the bottom. It appears the New York Central used this style.

Conrad Baker posted
J.R. Valderas CP 502 EB signals. This is East Chicago, Indiana, not Hammond.

J. R. Valderas commented on Conrad's posting
Back in the day, I would ride Amtrak's Pere Marquette from West Michigan to Chicago and photograph out the back window of the last coach (or cafe car) - it was the only train that did not have a locomotive (or cabbage) at the other end of train (the Wolverines and Blue Water did), allowing for this oppurtunity. When the train switches onto the NS at Porter, I would photograph everything I see (including the signals) and good thing I did since much of everything has changed from seeing the NYC searchlights and color position signals (including the PRR signals) changed over the signals NS recently put in their place. Here's a shot of the same signals (CP 502) as seen from the the rear of Amtrak's Pere Marquette in September 16, 2014 (I was riding aboard their 30th anniversary train which I got to ride in their Inspection car - click the link to see additional images from that trip - https://www.facebook.com/jr.valderas/media_set...)

Josh Kellerman posted
LaPorte, IN
Josh Ośmiałowski
These are US&S signals,
and aren't modified...
 but they are called the 'CR-2'

More examples of NYC's tri-color signal heads.

Josh Kellerman posted
Some classics still standing but not for long in LaPorte, IN

Jack Stoner posted
"Linking 13 Great States With the Nation" - A CSX Manifest led by a nice standard cab C40-8 thunders west through though the Potomac River Valley at Hansrote, WV on March 20, 2011. Progress has claimed the classic B&O CPL set here, but the magnificent scenery remains - "Quantun of Solace".

Stan Carlson posted six photos with the comment:

Did you ever see a B&O training CPL? These were made by GRS in 1945. We have this one at the Salamanca Rail Museum in Salamanca NY. It has been in Salamanca for 70 years, and has not been lit since the 1980's. The markers on top work now, we still have to wire up the bottom markers.

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Aaron Bryant posted
A westbound stack train is on the far side of Bluefield yard, as this old CPL from the N&W days, still survives and gives a restricting indication 24/7. Photo date: 12/02/18.

Sometimes CPL signals are installed on a railroad simply because they have no moving parts and were probably cheap. Specifically, a comment on a posting:
Bob Lalich The CPLs were installed on the C&WI in the early 60s when tracks 3 and 4 were removed between 80th St and Pullman Jct, and tracks 1 and 2 were signaled in both directions. Funding came from the Dan Ryan project. CPLs were also installed on track 3 between 81st St and 47th St, and portions of the line from Pullman Jct to Mainline Bridge. A former C&WI dispatcher told me that CPLs were picked because there are no moving parts and they got a good deal.

More examples of CPL signals:

• Harpers Ferry tunnel
• "Big Tunnel"

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