Bridge after bridge after bridge

[NYC_George]

I was looking at some prototype bridge walkways when I found this video of bridge after bridge after bridge across the Mississippi river. Your on the back of the train great view. If you like bridges click on the link below.
George

 

[NYC_George]

I said I was looking to see if there were any walkways on these truss bridges and I noticed there were but not very wide. I also see if you look the control towers on the swing bridges seem to be in the middle of the bridges. If a train is coming there's not much space for you to avoid being hit if your on the way to work in one of these control houses. I say this because there was a tragic accident in Brewster NY 60 years ago when 2 kids were on a deck girder and jumped 100 feet into a steam to avoid being hit. It didn't end up well Back in my engineer days there was a bridge in Copag NY where kids would play chicken with the train and jump into the river at the last moment and you could seeing them laughing on how close you were to them before they jumped. I guess we do dumb stuff when we're young.

George

 

[Rico]

Very cool video George, thanx!
There were a lot of bridges I’ve inspected that had no walkway at all, very freaky walking across when they were high up!

And I also recall kids on a reserve doing the same thing to us on a long trestle but they'd be on bicycles, they’d jump clear but the bikes would get mangled.
We had lunch one day with an elder and asked him about all the bikes, he laughed and said “probably not their bicycles”!

 

[trailrider]

I think the swing bridge operator would know the schedule of trains crossing the bridge and would walk to the control tower when no trains were scheduled. Those swing bridges could be hazardous to railroad operations. Back in the '40's one was hit by a barge (don't recall if it was while the bridge was open or closed). This was somewhere upstream from Quincy, Illinois. The result was passenger trains bound for Quincy Main Station couldn't cross the Mississippi from the Missouri side, and had to be diverted into West Quincy, Mo. My folks and I debarked there, and my granddad picked us up in his '49 Olds and drove us across to Quincy on the automobile bridge to their home. The Burlington built a modern depot there, but before that the station was a heavyweight passenger car with the trucks removed, sitting on some sort of foundation (cinder blocks maybe...don't remember). Rode the "shovel nose" Zephyrs down there from Chicago, and back at the end of our visit. River was a mile wide at that point. Long ago, in a galaxy far, far away...