Tag Archives: bridge

Index Road Bridge

I mentioned the bridge in Index in a previous post and I thought it deserved its own post. The bridge is relatively new having been built in the late 1990s. The road to the town in on one side of the river and the town is on the other so the bridge is pretty important! There is a rail bridge too, but the road is the way for most people since the trains don’t stop anymore.

It is an arch structure. The roadbed is suspended from the arch by a selection of cables. These come down in pairs from the arch and into the bed of the bridge. The structure is steel and, whether it was assembled on site or elsewhere, you can clearly see how the sections were assembled with the bolts through plates at each of the joints.

The arch shape is attractive and the symmetry of the bridge when viewed from the end is also very nice. Because the area is not too busy, they have not cluttered things up with too much fencing to segregate the pedestrians from the traffic so the whole thing has a simple look to it. A nice job by some engineers!

Hwy 99 Crosses the Water

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To get from Seattle to Fremont, you have to cross the water. Highway 99 runs across a high bridge to get from one side to the other. Being underneath the bridge you have a very different perspective on things. It is an old bridge structure with concrete piers supporting the roadway. From underneath, the symmetry of the structure is quite appealing. What is apparent when you are there but is not so clear in a picture is the steepness of the hill as it drops away down to the water. The gradient is pretty dramatic. The bridge does climb a bit but the ground falls away far faster.

Capilano Suspension Bridge

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The arrival of some family members in Vancouver as part of a vacation gave us a reason to make a day trip up to the city. It is a pretty easy run to get there so we were pleased to head up. Since the visitors were on vacation, they were keen to explore different things so we decided to head across the Lions Gate Bridge and visit the suspension bridge at Capilano. This was not something I had been aware of before we planned this.

The bridge has apparently been there for many years. It is suspended across a deep valley with a river running through the bottom. It is a very popular attraction and, while we headed there in the morning, we were certainly not alone. The people that own the bridge have expanded the facilities to include a number of other attractions and these will get their own posts in the coming days. However, this is just about the bridge. As it covers quite a distance, the bridge has quite a drop between the ends and the middle. This makes each end of it quite steep. Combine that with the number of people crossing, the desire everyone has to look around/get some pictures, and the amount it moves around which unsettles the first-time user and it takes a while to get across. It is interesting to see that the return journey is a bit quicker!

Being on the bridge gives you one perspective. Looking down into the valley below is a different point of view. At various other times, you get a chance to check the bridge out from a distance (when you see how long it is and how many people are on it at any one time) when it also seems rather dwarfed by the surroundings. You even get to walk underneath it at one point and then it has a very different feel. If you are spending any time in Vancouver, I do suggest you head to North Vancouver and check the bridge and its associated attractions out.

What Happened to the Old Bridge?

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Walking across the bridge from the overflow parking to the top of Snoqualmie Falls, I looked down the river to the top of the falls just beyond the barriers to stop errant boaters getting too close. I also noticed something in the water below us. For a while I was trying to work out what it was. Then, courtesy of polarizing glasses, I could see through the reflections and make out the shape of some structure.

It looks to me like this was a previous bridge. It sits just below the current bridge alignment and looks like it would have been the right size and shape to be a bridge span. I wonder whether it collapsed or whether, when the replacement bridge was being built, it was simpler to dump the old span into the river than to take it away. There could be another explanation of course and maybe it isn’t even part of a bridge. However, it clearly is something man-made sitting on the bed of the river.

Fremont Bridge

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Bascule bridges were a popular thing for me when we lived in Chicago. The Chicago River was crossed by many of them and I liked watching them being opened when the sailboats were entering or leaving the lake. Fremont also has a bascule bridge and it is really nicely looked after. It is well painted and seems to have a few decorative elements. We also got lucky with it opening as we were walking along the trail that runs underneath it. I wonder how good it looks at night. I guess I will have to come back and find out!

A Troll Lives Under the Bridge

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How many childhood stories included a troll? I never even got to think what a troll really was. They just seemed to live under bridges and take pleasure in making life miserable for anyone coming across the bridge. When you think about how mean spirited they were, it isn’t difficult to see how the name has been co-opted for modern usage. Fremont on the north side of Seattle has its own troll. It probably has many of the modern version but this one is old school.

Situated under a bridge that takes the road down to the city center, the troll is rather large. He has been sculpted out of the earth under the bridge and, I assume, some other building material. He is a pretty grim looking fellow. This doesn’t stop attracting a lot of people that come to check him out. If you want to get some sense of the scale of him, he has a VW Bug under one hand. That appears to be a genuine Beetle so you can see he is a pretty big chap. I didn’t notice anyone having any trouble getting across the bridge so he either isn’t good at his job or else the propaganda about trolls was fake news!

Amtrak Over the River

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Having watched a guy walking across a narrow railroad bridge over the Alameda Creek in Fremont as you can read about here, a train was now coming across the bridge. The train was a Capital Corridor service heading to San Jose. I am currently working on a project to acquire new locomotives for Caltrans that will see service on the Capital Corridor and will replace borrowed Amtrak locomotives. This train was being hauled by one of these Amtrak locomotives. All being well, this will soon no longer be a regular sight.

Dangerous Ways to Cross a River

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The trail along the Alameda Creek takes you under a couple of bridges. One is a road bridge and the other is a rail bridge. I walked under the rail bridge and, as I came out of the other side, a guy walked past me and up to the bridge deck. He was carrying a couple of containers as if he had just done some shopping. He then turned and walked on to the tracks. I stepped over the rail and headed along the track on the ties (sleepers for those of you in the U.K.)

I was rather surprised by this. The bridge was only a single track width and it did not appear to have any spare space at the edges. He also didn’t seem to be in too much of a hurry. I had to watch what was going to happen. I had no idea how busy the line was but this did not look like a good plan. He strolled across the river. As he was getting towards the other side, I thought I could hear a train horn. Sure enough, an Amtrak train appeared ahead. The engineer obviously saw him and was sounding the horn. The guy kept strolling but was clearly going to get across in time. He eventually stepped over the rail and down the slope on the opposite bank as the train came closer. I don’t know whether he knew the schedule but, if he had been in the middle rather than where he was, this could have ended very badly.

USS San Francisco Memorial

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Walk around the headland from Sutro Baths and you come to a great view looking across towards the Golden Gate Bridge. Here is located the memorial to the USS San Francisco. The ship was engaged in a vicious battle during the Second World War at Guadalcanal in which her senior officers were killed. The ship survived albeit heavily damaged. When she was scrapped after the war, the wings from the bridge were kept and placed as part of the memorial. They still bear the scars of the rounds that hit the ship during the engagement with the steel holed and twisted in many places.

Lion’s Gate

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Stanley Park may be a great place to explore but it is also bisected by a major road. It cuts up through the park before getting on to a bridge to head across to North Vancouver. This is called Lions Gate. We stopped to check out the bridge as we were making our way around the park. There is a viewing area just west of the bridge which we took a look at. There were several viewing levels down the side of the hill. It was amazing how many people never bothered to go down the steps from the top level to check out the different views.

We also wandered back along the road to the bridge that passes over the main highway. Not only was there a view along the bridge but there were also some little sculptures of lions. These seemed to mirror the larger ones down near the entrance to the suspension bridge but I kind of liked the little versions. I met a couple of photographers at this location. I had some thoughts about experimenting with a shot here but that will be another post.