Showing posts with label Double Deck Bridge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Double Deck Bridge. Show all posts

Monday, April 13, 2015

Shasta County, California Bridges: Pit River Bridge (2)

April 2015 (40.7601 Degrees, -122.3182 Degrees) Pit River Bridge
We drove north from Redding to look at the bridges around Lake Shasta. We had previously studied the Pit River Bridge a couple of weeks ago. It's unusual because it carries a highway on the top deck and a railway on the bottom deck. It was built by the US Bureau of Reclamation as part of the Shasta Dam Project and given to California's Division of Water Resources (DWR) to maintain. The DWR would like to give it to Caltrans.

Dams are controversial because of their negative effect on the people (and animals) whose homes are near the river. Every river coming out of the Sierras in California has been dammed except for the Smith River near the northern border.

Eric Sakowski wrote that the Pit River Bridge would be the tallest railroad bridge in the U.S. if you measured from the riverbed. The bridge is in the Shasta-Trinity National Forest and Recreation Area. When we drove down a one-lane dirt road to take this photo we saw many people hiking, picnicking, and enjoying the near wilderness.
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Shasta County, California Bridges: Pit River Bridge (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Tuesday, March 31, 2015

Shasta County, California Bridges: Pit River Bridge (1)

May 2014 (40.7601 Degrees, -122.3182 Degrees) Pit River Bridge
The Pit River Bridge is a 1094 ft long double deck truss with a highway (I-5) on top and a railway (Southern Pacific) on the bottom. It was built in 1941 as part of the Shasta Dam Project. There's an excellent article on this impressive bridge on Eric Sakowski's Highest Bridges website. The only additional information that I have is that Caltrans was approached by California's Department of Water Resources (DWR) a few years ago to take ownership of this bridge. However, the bridge has never had a seismic retrofit and so Caltrans insisted that the bridge had to be safe for earthquakes before they could take it. Moreover, Caltrans told DWR that they would design the retrofit at what seemed a very high cost, and this was met with some consternation by DWR. However, they are both state agencies and so there is no actual cost to the state.
Creative Commons License
Shasta County, California Bridges: Pit River Bridge (1) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.