Old Vicksburg Bridge
Coordinates: 32 ° 18 ′ 52 " N , 90 ° 54 ′ 17" W.
| Old Vicksburg Bridge | ||
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| use | Railway bridge | |
| Crossing of | Mississippi River | |
| place | Delta , Louisiana and Vicksburg , Mississippi | |
| construction | Truss bridge | |
| overall length | approx. 2.5 km | |
| Longest span | 251 m | |
| opening | 1930 | |
| planner | Harrington, Howard & Ash | |
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The Old Vicksburg Bridge , also Mississippi River Bridge , is a single-track railroad bridge over the Mississippi River between the Delta in Louisiana and Vicksburg , Mississippi . It is administered by Warren County and used by the Kansas City Southern Railway . The bridge was originally built as a combined rail and road bridge and led US Highway 80 until the opening of the neighboring new Vicksburg Bridge in 1973 ; road traffic over the bridge was completely discontinued in 1998.
history
Until the bridge was built, a rail ferry connected the Meridian - Vicksburg of the Alabama and Vicksburg Railroad and Delta - Lorraine of the Vicksburg, Shreveport and Pacific Railway . The two railroad companies were part of the American railroad investment of the banker Frédéric Emile Baron d'Erlanger . The Emile Erlanger & Co. leased the routes from 1926 to the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad (subsidiary of the Illinois Central Railroad ), which wanted to replace the rail ferry with a bridge, the traffic of which was around 100,000 rail cars annually.
After the founding of the Vicksburg Bridge & Terminal Company , a truss bridge for combined rail and road traffic was designed by Harrington, Howard & Ash and built between 1928 and 1930. The construction was financed through the sale of bonds and company shares, the use of the railroad track by the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad regulated a 50-year lease. The Warren County bought the bridge in 1947. The bridge led a track and a 5.5-meter-wide road for within the truss US Highway 80 . With the construction of the neighboring Vicksburg Bridge for Interstate 20 in 1973, US Highway 80 was relocated there and road traffic over the bridge was completely stopped in 1998. The bridge was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1989 (NRHP #: 88002423).
description
The Old Vicksburg Bridge is a combination of several truss girders over the Mississippi with a total length of 948 m and approximately 1.5 km girder bridges for the driveways. Above the shipping channel there is a tanner girder with a length of 507.5 m and the largest span of 251.5 m. The construction height is between 16.8 m and 36.6 m (directly above the river pillars ). On the Vicksburg side there is a 55 m long lattice girder with an overhead carriageway, followed by separate trestle bridges up to the respective abutments for the railroad track and the carriageway, which already rises on the last truss towards the trestle bridge. On the Louisiana side in the direction of the Delta, the tanner girders are followed by three structurally identical lattice girders with an underlying carriageway, which, like the cantilever girders of the tanner girder, have spans of 127.7–128.9 m. This is followed by girder bridges with a total length of over a kilometer up to the abutment, which guide the track and the roadway together. The carriageway has a width of 5.5 m, the width of the trusses is 11.6 m. The narrow lane width of a little over two meters in each direction was the main reason for the closure of the motor vehicle connection over the bridge.
Web links
- Vicksburg Bridge Commission. Warren County Mississippi.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Finance Docket No. 7430: Operation by Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad Company. In: Interstate Commerce Commission reports. Vol. 154, 1929, pp. 412-416.
- ^ A b Wilbur J. Watson: A decade of bridges, 1926-1936. JH Jansen, Cleveland, Ohio 1937, p. 102.
- ^ Vicksburg Bridge Commission. Warren County Mississippi. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
- ^ Jack D. Elliott, Jr .: Mississippi River Bridge - National Register of Historic Places Evaluation / Return Sheet. National Park Service, 1988.
- ↑ a b c Old Vicksburg Bridge. John A. Weeks III. Retrieved August 26, 2017.
- ↑ Rudy McLellan: Challenges Maintaining a Vital East-West Rail Corridor at Vicksburg Mississippi Measures Taken and Repairs Made to the Railroad Truss. In: Louisiana Transportation Conference. Baton Rouge, February 17-20, 2013.