[PRCo] Re: Weak Bridges

[Herb Brannon]

That bridge was extensively rebuilt thrity years ago in 1976/77. It's probably time to do it again.
   
  The 76/77 rebuild caused a lot of streetcar delays. One afternoon I was doing a 35-Library Express (short turn downtown via 4th Ave tracks and no stops from SHJct to Castle Shannon). When I crossed into the city I noticed the workers were doing a lot more running back and forth than they usually did and two fire trucks were on the city side of the bridge with firemen running back and forth. I made the city loop and got back to the bridge to find a line of three cars in front of me (I came south on Grant) waiting to cross the bridge and four or five cars which had come off Wood Street waiting on Ft Pitt Blvd to get on the bridge. A couple PAT route foremen were starting to direct the cars onto the bridge. I found out the construction workers had spotted a broken beam under the bridge and the decision was made to close the structure. I was one of the last cars over the bridge and several PCC's were left stranded on the city side to wait out repairs to the underside of the
 bridge. They were afraid the weight of the trolleys would cause a collapse. This happened on Friday afternoons rush hour. The stranded cars spent the night on the city side and were moved, one a time, on Saturday. I went on a week of vacation the next week. When I returned a week later the bridge was open to trolleys. Spacing was increased and speed was very slow for several weeks after that incident.
   
   
   
  Ken & Tracie <ktjosephson at earthlink.net> wrote:
  I was under the impression that the Smithfield Street Bridge was another one of those "iffy" structures.
K.

-----Original Message-----
>From: Fred Schneider 
>Sent: Aug 15, 2007 7:22 PM
>To: pittsburgh-railways at dementia.org
>Subject: [PRCo] Weak Bridges
>
>On the subject of weak bridges, Pennsylvania's politicians finally 
>bit the bullet and today released a list of structurally deficient 
>bridges. Except for a couple in Carbon County and one over the 
>Lehigh River at West Catasauqua, most are either in Erie County (both 
>eastbound and westbound spans on I-95 at Northeast PA), or Allegheny, 
>or Beaver or Washington counties. The Rankin Bridge, that replaced 
>the one that fell under the over loaded work car in 1937, is one of 
>those on today's list of spans you really don't want to cross. 
>Another (get this one Jerry) is the Donora to Monessen span. 
> 
>