I had traveled to that area of Minneapolis in late summer 2004 to photograph the famed Stone Arch Railroad Bridge and drove under the I-35W bridge to get there.
Last night, I tried to use aerial photographs to get my bearings on the proximity of the two bridges – and was using Google Earth in 3-D mode, adjusting the viewing angle.
This is how the bridge appears in that view – enough to make one’s skin crawl. Looks just like the news photos of the tragedy shot from news choppers, especially the lower right corner. (Click to enlarge)
Creepy. There are usually many after-the-fact things that make you think. I called an army buddy in Minneapolis to see if he and his family were OK. He said his son had been working a lot of hours at his job, and got disgusted and walked out early.
He drove over the bridge and was home and had the radio on when he heard it had collapsed.
One of our local TV channels noted that there are about 25,000 bridges in Missouri and Illinois and 25% are substandard. A bridge in my neighborhood was closed this AM by the county.
So, PZ, where is the former GN bridge located? Got a google URL for it? I have been over this bridge several times on GN and NP passenger trains, but it is a bit difficult to see the bridge for the train being in the road.
Also I noticed some 100 ton covered hoppers got redesigned. What road was that going under the bridge?
In the big flood of 1965, one of the piers of Jim Hill’s stone arch bridge sunk about two feet. As I recall, it happened when a passenger train was passing over it. The bridge just accommodated the sinking pier like it was made of rubber. Telephoto shots of the double tracks made it look like a serious dip. They just filled the sag in with new grout, raised the tracks to proper surface, and left the sunken pier alone. Today, if you sight along the sides of the bridge, you can plainly see where all the courses of masonry take a dip. I believe they also lined the underside of the arches with new concrete on each side of that sunken pier.