For those who don’t know, ‘back in the day’ the PB&NE was Bethlehem Steel Co.'s wholly-owned “common carrier” switching line at and in its Bethlehem, PA plant. It connected directly with 2 ‘outside’ railroads, the Lehigh Valley RR to the north and the Reading RR to the south and west, so as to enable the steel co. to get pretty good rail access and some competition on rates, etc. Although “The Steel” has been gone now for about 10 years, the railroad and a small fleet of switchers still survives and thrives, under the name of “BethIntermodal” of Lehigh Valley Rail Management (“LVRM”), serving a small (but growing) industrial park on portions of the site of the old steel mills, and a pretty busy multi-faceted intermodal and transload terminal - NS Triple Crown’s RoadRailers, double-stacks, piggyback, etc. - see: http://www.bethintermodal.com/ and http://www.bethintermodal.com/locations/bethlehemfac.shtml
A book on the PB&NE and other internal steel plant railroad operations - including both narrow and wide-gauge ! - has been published: Bethlehem Steel Railroading, by Nevin S. Yeakel*, Publisher: The Railroad Press (August 19, 2008), 56 pages, ISBN-10: 1931477272, ISBN-13: 978-1931477277, about $25, per: http://www.amazon.com/Bethlehem-Steel-Railroading-Nevin-Yeakel/dp/1931477272
(*Several others also by Mr. Yeakel - perhaps earlier versions or drafts - appear to be at the Bethlehem Public Library only, but I haven’t seen them yet.)
Nevertheless, there doesn’t seem to be any photos of ithe PB&NE’s 2 largest bridges available on-line, although there are many of tis locomotives - see:
Heck, you’ve got my interest. I’m not too knowing of the engineer-side of the things, but I always like seeing the difference in bridge designs. I *think * I’ve been under that one bridge in Hellertown while in a van once.
Ever see the bridges on the (former, I guess) sister road in Steelton on the Steelton & Highspire RR? One track crossing 3 bridges in a row - each bridge of a different design. Neat stuff.
Probably took Zug’s original note slightly out of context, but I, too, have been fascinated by many large railroad bridges. Chicago is a great place to see such things, and I’m proud to say that I’ve been both over and under a large number of the railroad bridges in this region.
Maybe some year we’ll get to your neck of the woods, Paul, and see for ourselves some of the good stuff you’ve shown us. On our vacation next month we’re going to see a few of the railroad bridges over the Ohio River (from Ohio to points south and east).
Carl - Ever see one of Lehigh Heavy Forge’s - LHFX - cars ? That’s one of the remaining BSCo operations there, now owned by WHEMCO - see: http://www.lhforge.com/ Here are 2 links to photos (not mine) of them:
No LHFX in my logs, Paul–another good excuse to get over that way! I forgot how long ago it was that we were in eastern Pennsylvania (Philly doesn’t count!), when my peripatetic sister lived there (had to be at least 15 years ago!), but we’re going to have to get out that way again sometime–visit my freight-car-freak friend in Coplay, see these bridges, those cars, and maybe let you take us on a tour of somewhere! (We did get to Shavertown when we were up in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre area–nearly got chased out by floodwaters!)
If you’re really lucky, you may catch one of the hot ingot cars in Allentown. Usually can catch them on the head end of the intermodal trains that make pickup/setouts at Bethlehem.
Wow! The steel roads built their structures to handle the heaviest traffic tonnages. These PB&NE bridges would have done justice to the PRR’s New York – Chicago main line. And the massively heavy construction was justified: years ago (c. 1972 or thereabouts), I was informed by a Union Railroad colleague (URR switched the US Steel Pittsburgh District mills) that the URR handled more tonnage than Union Pacific – didn’t haul it too far, mind you, but haul it URR did. Clearly, the same design mentality is reflected in the PB&NE structures.#### Cheers, and thanks for sharing.
[:)] Paul ; thank you for the pictures . Your description of the design is interesting. Weight and stress transfer is visible. I am waiting for info on the subject matter.
I dare say that most rail bridges built “back in the day” were pretty stout affairs. Of course, this was before the era of “just enough” engineering, too.
I know of one bridge here that hasn’t been used in years, but still stands and likely could handle today’s rail traffic. A bridge in Hancock, NY that was built to accomodate two Erie six foot guage tracks still handles regular traffic between Port Jervis and Binghampton.
PDN: isn’t there some history of this as a key link in the short-lived but oh! so dramatic Reading Combine? That would account for a certain amount of perceived ‘overbuilding’ beyond what a simple ‘owned carrier’ might engage in.
P.S. in the picture of the two bridges, ‘what’s up with that’ is that the inverted truss achieves the same effective loading with less steel. The ‘box truss’ at the left uses the ‘triangle’ at each end primarily as a transition to the upper chord of the truss proper, and could be made in much lighter material (in fact, I believe we discussed some Canadian Grand Trunk bridges that showed precisely this characteristic). If you do a ‘thought experiment’ of sorts and invert the bridge on the right and bring its bearings down to the level of the one on the left, you will see more clearly what is involved.
Don’t forget - STEEL railroads handled trains of these
I believe empty they had a lightweight of 100 TONS - loaded 200 or more tons. Cars were not used in interchange service.
Worked B&O’s Haselton tower in Youngstown. Erie was the first road to the area. Erie serviced a steel mill that was located at the rear of the tower. The Erie’s Main tracks were located on the FAR side of the double Main tracks of B&O, PRR & NYC. With the Erie being original carrier in the area, the agreements negotiated with the other carrier allowed the Erie to operate their trains ‘without delay’. To reach their Main Tracks from the mill they had a series of hand throw crossovers over each of the intervening carriers tracks - which the Erie could open without requesting permission from any of the carriers. The crossovers were protected by a Statutory Stop on each carriers tracks. The Erie hot bottle trains would operate from the mill behind Haselton tower to the mills rolling plant at a location known as DeForest Jct. about 12 miles away. Nothing stopped the Erie.
The bottle cars have gotten heavier. The cars on the Arcelor bottle train between Indiana Harbor and Riverdale ride on four six-wheel Buckeye trucks and gondolas are inserted as spacers to distribute the weight.
