Pecos River High Bridge

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Coordinates: 29 ° 45 ′ 31 ″  N , 101 ° 21 ′ 27 ″  W.

Pecos River High Bridge
Pecos River High Bridge
use Railway bridge
Crossing of Pecos River
overall length 424 m
Longest span 114 m
height 98 m
start of building 1882/1891/1943
completion 1883/1892/1944
planner Modjeski and Masters (1942)
location
Pecos River High Bridge (USA)
Pecos River High Bridge

The Pecos River High Bridge is a railroad bridge over the Pecos River in Texas , USA . It stands about halfway between Langtry and Comstock in Val Verde County on the stretch between El Paso and San Antonio .

It was part of the connection of the Southern Pacific Railroad from New Orleans via Houston , San Antonio, El Paso, Tucson , Yuma , Los Angeles to San Francisco . It has belonged to the Union Pacific Railroad since the takeover of Southern Pacific Transportation in 1996 . It is mainly used by freight trains, but also several times a week by the Sunset Limited passenger train now operated by Amtrak .

history

First bridge (1883)

Southern Pacific had begun building a route eastward from San Francisco via Los Angeles, Yuma, Tucson, and El Paso in the late 1860s. On January 12, 1883, she reached the Pecos River on the route built by the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad (Harrisburg is now a district of Houston) in the opposite direction. Since the Pecos River, cut almost 100 m deep into the plateau, was too big an obstacle, the route began about 4 km from the west and 14 km from the east before the today's bridge, the descent to the Rio Grande , which it followed for a long time to cross the Pecos River on a no longer existing bridge shortly before its confluence with the Rio Grande. The tracks laid on ramps in the rock faces and along the river directly below them were constantly at risk from rockfalls and landslides. In addition, this route imposed significant restrictions on the length and weight of the trains and their speed, and hence the yield on the train connections. The course of the route is still clearly visible, only the track bed along the Rio Grande has been largely cleared by the river and the backwater of the Amistad Dam .

Pecos Viaduct (1892)

Pecos Viaduct

In order to avoid these dangers and restrictions, the Pecos Viaduct was built between November 1891 and February 1892 in just 87 working days, about 130 m upstream from the current bridge. Through this bridge, the railway line was led over the Pecos River at the level of the plateau without any particular height differences, and the route was shortened by almost 18 km.

It was built by the Phoenix Bridge Company and resembled a wrought iron trestle bridge . However, the scaffolding pillars on both sides of the main opening had cantilever arms made of lattice girders that supported a suspension girder.

It had a track and a walkway on both sides for the railway staff and was 6.1 m wide. The rails lay at a height of 97.8 m (321  ft ) above the river. This means that the Pecos Viaduct was higher than the Kinzua Bridge and when it opened it was the highest railway bridge in North America and the third highest in the world, only the 122 m high Garabit Viaduct in France, completed in 1884, and the 102.6 m high Loa Viaduct (1888) in Bolivia were higher.

The Pecos Viaduct was originally 665 m long and had 48 openings, of which, however, a large part was accounted for by the long western ramp bridge, which was later replaced by a heaped dam. The main opening had a span of 56.4 m (185 ft), the other openings were between 10.7 m and 19.8 m wide.

In 1909 and 1910, and again in 1929, the bridge was considerably reinforced, but eventually it was no longer able to cope with the increased traffic loads. It was dismantled in 1949, five years after the new building opened. The bases of their pillars are still visible when the water level is low.

Pecos River High Bridge (1944)

For economic, but especially for military reasons, a decision was made in 1942 to build a new bridge approx. 130 m next to the old one. The War Production Board and the Office of Defense Transportation approved the necessary steel shipments. The bridge was designed by Modjeski and Masters and the superstructure was produced by Bethlehem Steel . Construction of the bridge lasted from August 1943 to December 1944.

The unchanged single-track bridge has a steel lattice girder that extends over five openings and is supported by reinforced concrete pillars up to 83 m high . The main opening has a span of 114.15 m (374.5 ft). On the west side, a short girder bridge connects to the railway embankment. The Pecos River High Bridge is 424 m (1390 ft) long and as tall as the previous bridge, but often appears to be lower when the water level of the Amistad Reservoir reaches a high level.

Web links

Commons : Pecos River High Bridge  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e Donald W. Olson: Pecos High Bridge. In: Handbook of Texas Online on the Texas State Historical Association website
  2. ↑ a b c The Pecos Viaduct on National Park Service, Amistad National Recreation Area
  3. ↑ historical postcards on the private website Aggieland Rail Scene
  4. ↑ The Puente Nuevo in Ronda and the Pont de la Caille in France are road bridges.
  5. ^ Pecos Viaduct in Texas. In: Centralblatt der Bauverwaltung . XII. Volume, No. 37A (from September 14, 1892), p. 404 ( digitized , on kobv.de)