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 CNHE - Construction of the Lethbridge Viaduct - Lethbridge, AB Posted by:  T0SHEA
N 49° 41.895 W 112° 51.111
12U E 366458 N 5506727
This Canadian Pacific Railroad Trestle is pretty much the king of railroad bridges.
Waymark Code: WMQ59J
Location: Alberta, Canada
Date Posted: 12/22/2015
Views: 8
At 1 mile and 51 feet(1,623 metres) it is the longest and at 314 feet (96 metres) the CPR trestle in Lethbridge is the highest trestle bridge in the world. It has served the Canadian Pacific Railway's Crowsnest line for 103 years as of 2015 as it passes over the Oldman River Valley.
Coordinates are for the east end of the bridge. A great vantage point is from the side road directly west from the information centre on First Avenue, just south of the east end of the bridge:
N 49 41.843, W 112 51.142
Built in 1909, the bridge took ten months to build and required 12,436 tons of steel, 328,000 rivets and 7,600 gallons of paint.
This Canadian Pacific Railway viaduct, built between 1907 and 1909 across the Oldman River Valley, was an engineering triumph. More than 1,600 metres long and 95 metres high, this steel structure is the longest and highest of its kind in Canada. The designers and labourers had to overcome daunting technical challenges during construction as a result of harsh conditions such as violent winds, dry soils, and extreme temperatures. By allowing significantly longer trains and shorter transit times, the Lethbridge viaduct greatly increased the capacity of the Crowsnest Pass Route.
From the CNHE Plaque
High Level Bridge
It was erected a century ago, to avoid the myriad curves, stiff grades and coulee crossings that remained from the line’s original construction. Today, the Lethbridge High Level Bridge remains as much an engineering marvel as when its final rivet was banged into place in the summer of 1909. The 1,623 -metre (5,327-foot) span was so soundly designed and constructed that it carries modern heavyweight locomotives and freight cars without a groan of complaint. It remains, the locals boast, the world’s greatest railway trestle, when measured as a combination of length and height.
When it was re-surveyed in the 1980s, after decades of pounding train traffic, the bridge had subsided a mere three centimetres into the flood plain of the Old Man River. Not bad for a total vertical elevation of 95.7 metres (313.9 feet). And this feat of design and calculation, which had to account for the curvature of the Earth, regular floods of the valley floor, and the force of Chinook winds, was executed thousands of miles away at CPR offices in Montreal. The bridge was prefabricated in Ontario and delivered in pieces aboard 645 freight cars.
From Alberta Southwest
Classification: National Historic Event
Province or Territory: Alberta
Location - City name/Town name: Lethbridge
Link to Parks Canada entry (must be on www.pc.gc.ca): [Web Link]
Link to HistoricPlaces.ca: [Web Link]
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