Union Pacific Salt River Bridge

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Coordinates: 33 ° 26 ′ 1 ″  N , 111 ° 56 ′ 38 ″  W.

Union Pacific Salt River Bridge
Union Pacific Salt River Bridge
Right the truss bridge of the UP, left the Metro Light Rail Bridge (2009)
use Railway bridge
Crossing of Tempe Town Lake
place Tempe , Arizona
Entertained by Union Pacific Railroad
construction Truss bridge
overall length 393 m
Longest span 46 m
opening circa 1912
location
Union Pacific Salt River Bridge (USA)
Union Pacific Salt River Bridge

The Union Pacific Salt River Bridge , also known as the Arizona Eastern Railroad Bridge , is a single-track railroad bridge over Tempe Town Lake in Tempe , Arizona .

history

The Salt River Railroad Bridge in 1989, followed by the Ash Avenue Bridge and the Mill Avenue Bridge

The truss bridge was built by the Arizona Eastern Railroad around 1912 . It replaced a bridge on the Maricopa and Phoenix Railroad from 1905, whose predecessor structures date back to 1887. The Arizona Eastern Railroad became part of the Southern Pacific Railroad in 1955, which became part of the Union Pacific Railroad (UP) in 1996 . Originally, the bridge spanned the course of the eponymous Salt River , which has been dammed above the city of Tempe since 1999 to form the approximately three kilometer long Tempe Town Lake.

In the early morning hours of July 29, 2020, several wagons of a UP freight train derailed at the south end of the bridge and caused the last truss over the Rio Salado Parkway to collapse. The wagons, some of which were loaded with wood, caught fire, which spread across other parts of the bridge. The following truss was so badly damaged by the fire that it had to be blown up a few days later. The UP intends to replace the destroyed part of the bridge.

description

The steel truss bridge extends in a north-south direction and consists of nine parallel- belted Pratt truss girders (English pratt truss ; a stud frame with partially crossed cross struts, named after the inventors Caleb and Thomas Willis Pratt). The seven middle ones are 150 ft (45.7  m ) in length  and the two shorter ones on the outside are 30  ft (9.1  m ). Including two wooden trestle bridges on the driveways, the total length is 1,291  ft (393.5  m ).

Web links

Commons : UP - Salt River Bridge  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Barbara Behan: Arizona Eastern Railroad Bridge, Spanning Salt River, Tempe, Maricopa County, AZ. Historic American Engineering Record, HAER AZ-18, San Francisco 1989.
  2. ^ A b c Terry Grant: ASU engineers offer insight on Tempe railway bridge collapse. ASU Now, July 30, 2020, Arizona State University, accessed July 31, 2020.
  3. ↑ Andrew Corselli: UP Train Derails, Causes Fire, Bridge Collapse. Railway Age, July 29, 2020, accessed July 31, 2020.
  4. ↑ Cydeni Carter: Bridge over Tempe Town Lake partially demolished for construction following train derailment. ABC15 Arizona, August 3, 2020, accessed August 4, 2020.