shout out from IRM list forwarded
To anyone who is interested. Bob Harris is scrapping South Shore catenary bridges from the ideal section near Miller IN. IRM has no money to buy them. Bob will sell them for an estimated scrap value of $500 each. Now is your chance to help IRM to preserve a portion of history. Contact me so I can tell Bob to save them. We need to know in about one week. Andrew Sunderland
The going price of $500 per catenary bridge appears reasonable since they are rather heavy box girders, but it is still a lot of money to ask for from individuals. Since they are box girders and exposed to the elements both inside and out, I also wonder how deteriorated they are (they date from around 1926-1927).
As I recall, there was no real ornamentation on them–just steel latticework girders, both horizontal and vertical.
I’m kind of surprised that these are available now–they’ve been gone from the tracks there for years, having been replaced by new structures supporting constant-tension catenary.
They were in place until recently when the south shore upgraded their catenary, Bob took them all but financial issues are causing a selloff, lets save them from scrapping!!! 500 bucks…the cost of a used brass engine or good plastic model today? a bargain!