Frisco - Fort Smith Bridge -- Van Buren AR - Railroad Bridges on Waymarking.com

This bridge was originally built to serve the St Louis-San Francisco Railroad (The "Frisco"). Today it serves the Arkansas & Missouri RR, the Union Pacific, and sometimes the Kansas City Southern.

Blasterz loved this bridge, but because a freight train was stopped completely blocking Lee parkway, we had no way to get close to it.

This bridge has been built, rebuilt, re-rebuilt, reconfigured, washed-out, repaired, and converted in its 100 years spanning the Arkansas river.

As it stands now (2014), it is an approximately 2200 foot long vertical lift railroad bridge with both Pratt Through Truss and Warren truss spans over the Arkansas River. With love and admiration, we call it a Frankenbridge because:

(1) it rests on some piers from the 1885 bridge

(2) it rests on piers set on pilings in 1943, and

(3) it rests on new piers added in the 1976 movement conversion.

It also:

(4) had the 1916 swing span locked when the vertical lift span was added, and

(5) had Pratt through truss deck spans added after 1943

It may be a mish-mash, but we think it is still beautiful.

For the FULL history of the multiple bridges here, including AWESOME historic photos and disaster pics of floods that washed away sections of this bridge, see this AMAZING website by Mike Conden: (visit link)

Bridge Type: Truss Bridge Usage: Railroad Moving Bridge: Vertical lift (lifts straight up)

Visit Instructions:
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Recent Visits/Logs:

Date Logged Log User Rating   11/29/2014 Benchmark Blasterz visited it