Hello ,Iwas just talking with my brother up in Oregon and he was telling me there
was a man up there buying old railroad cars and making private bridges with them.
Anyone seen any of those bridges up in Oregon,probably north of Eugene
somewhere??? Thanks ,Dave Br
…Dave, have not been in that part of the country for decades to see his “covered bridges” but have heard of people constructing bridges with RR flat cars…It all makes sense as they surely would support plenty of weight necessary for a bridge on a country road, etc…
They say that former flatcars make better bridges than former boxcars do.
Interesting info I found, thanks to Modelcar’s suggestion:
Trinity River Redding California including all the tech you’d ever want to know
A company in billings MT, that builds such bridges
And a case study done for county governments in the state of Iowa, comparing the approx cost of a concentional reinforced concrete slab span ($65/sq ft) versus building the same span using recycled flat cars ($39/Sq ft) for low volume routes, onl
That’s because flat cars (and gondolas) have much thicker center sills than box cars do. A box car would probably sag and collapse in the middle.
I never before realized that so much went into flatcar construction
…Makes perfect sense to me to figure up a plan as the Co. A G showed in his post…Flat cars must have very strong frames spanning their length. How many times have we seen construction equipment being shipped via rail on a flat car…{such as bulldozers, etc…}.
Seems to me an economic way for some county to install a bridge out on that county rd. that has very little traffic and figures it doesn’t pay to have a professonal bridge designed and constructed at the sight. The RR car should be an economic way out.
I used to railfan Kirby yard in Kirby, TX quite a bit, and one of the bridges for the yard service road is made from a flat car. Always thought that was the ultimate in recycling. I will see if I can’t find a pic (I grew up in that area and moved away before I got a digital).
If one compares the beauty of a covered bridge like the one found on the following webpage, http://www.coveredbridges.com
with the box cars found on this website
http://www.misterw.com/Freights01.htm
one can only imagine the conversations each bridge will provoke…
While crossing the covered bridge: quotes from the movie “The Bridges of Madison County”
“When I think of why I make pictures, the reason that I can come up with just seems that I’ve been making my way here. It seems right now that all I’ve ever done in my life is making my way here to you.”
After crossing the boxcar bridge, the young railfan parks the car along the side of the road and exclaims to his bride, “Hey, this is really cool! Is this an old SP car? I haven’t seen that marking before. Hmm…hey, sweetie, did you bring my notebook? Where’s my camera? Why do you look so angry, dear? I promise this won’t take long. Sweetie, unlock the door, come on…please. The light is going to change. Just hand me my camera. Oh, sweetie, don’t cry.”
Hmmmmm. All the birdges around here are made of flatcars. there is even one that is 2 flatcars welded end to end. maybe I will try to get a photo of it.
After one of the LA earthquakes that did so much freeway damage - an engineering firm proposed a temporary replacement freeway bridge constructed out of steel pilings and rr flat cars. They built a prototype that passed initial testing but I never heard anything further. Seems like a good idea.
dd
Southern made signal bridges out of old boxcars…
While I’m sure that a boxcar might make a reasonable light use covered bridge, I’d want a second way across for stuff that wouldn’t fit through the boxcar, or was simply too heavy.
…Bridge building with flat cars say…using them side by side to make a 2 lane bridge and adding {on pilasters}, as many as needed lengthwise to get across whatever one is bridging should not have very much weight restriction. Add whatever road surface one needs and bingo…a bridge. Of course some kind of side rails would be required.