Bryson City Railroad Bridge
Great Smoky Mountains Railroad Crossing of the Tuckasegee River
Due to the very nature of their design Warren truss bridge can be associated with the letter W. On any bridge of this configuration one should be able to make out this letter, which is outlined by the alternating slants of the diagonal members. On this bridge the Warren W is particularly pronounced, so much so that one can't help but wonder whether or not it was intentional. Towering over the rocky Tuckasegee River, with the Great Smoky Mountains as a backdrop, the "W" bridge makes for a nice picture.
The bridge carries the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad, a vintage tourist railroad operating out of Bryson City. It was once apart of Norfolk Southern's Murphy Branch, but was abandoned in the 1980s after a drop off in freight traffic (1). The current owner, like most railroads, appears to give the bridge very little maintenance, as it is completely covered in rust. However, the robust construction of railroad truss bridges, combined with the infrequent traffic, makes this a non-issue. The bridge is not located in Bryson City, but rather on its outskirts, adjacent to a city park that provides easy access to it for photography.
The truss span contains six panels and has a flat top chord. It is certainly not exceptionally long, but is wide enough to span the river without disruptive piers in the middle, unlike a modern bridge. All connections are riveted with gusset plates. The vertical members on the bridge--less important than the diagonals on a Warren truss--are rolled steel beams considerably thinner than the diagonals. Interestingly, on connections where diagonals, verticals, and front posts meet together, there are a series of spacers of graduated length between gusset plate and the vertical. The diagonal members, meanwhile, are much heavier duty, overshadowing the verticals and forming the pronounced "W." The front posts, verticals, top chords, bottom chords, and top bracing all use latticing, which in essence "stitches" the steel pieces together using small strips of metal that form an "X" pattern. Unlike most bridges, this one has latticing on both sides of the beams, which further adds to its skeleton appearance. The portal bracing is interesting as well. It has miniature verticals that point inward at the top, which is reminscent of the Howe truss, a configuration used mostly on covered bridges.
The approaches to the main span consist of tall deck plate girders, which themselves are comprised of riveted rectangular sections. The paint on these matches that on the truss span, which means that they were probably erected at the same time.
The bridge does have a mostly-intact plaque bolted to one of the front posts. However, getting a complete picture of it requires either a powerful telephoto lense or the will to risk a confrontation with an oncoming train, neither of which I have. I did manage to get a shot of it from the ground, but it is not good enough to include in my set of pictures. It states that the bridge was built by the Phoenix Bridge Company, a division of the Phoenix Iron Works, the company most known for the Phoenix column. There is also a date on the plaque, but in my shot the third digit is obscured by a bolt. However, it did reveal that the bridge is a 19th century structure, erected either in 1889 or 1899, since construction on the railroad occurred in those two decades and not before. My educated guess would be that it is an 1899 bridge, because of its use of the Warren configuation and riveted connections, design features more associated with the 20th than the 19th century. The nearby Ela Railroad Bridge, also over the Tuckasegee on the same line, was built in 1900; it has some pinned connections, making it less "modern" in a sense than this bridge. However, I can't discount the 1889 possibility without a definite shot.
Facts
- Builder: Phoenix Bridge Co. of Phoenixville, PA
- Route Carried: Great Smoky Mountains Railroad
- Crosses: Tuckasegee River
- Location: Swain County, NC
- Design: Six-panel, riveted Warren truss with plate girder approaches
- Coordinates: 35°25'17.16"N, 83°27'28.82"W
Pictures
- L-R: various views of the sides of the truss span.
- Left: a portal shot. Center. a different angle of the portal. Right: a deck plate girder span.
- Left: a top chord / front post connection. Right: another top chord connection.