That’s a five-span lattice through truss carrying two railroad tracks. It’s got a less spectacular setting than a lot of the structures I’ve talked about, and the longest span is only 150 feet, so it’s much closer to “completely ordinary” than it is to “record breaker”, but honesty, who cares? People talk about structural beauty – about the alignment of structural efficiency and aesthetics – and here it is. Lattice trusses, like suspension bridges, tend towards good looks, just as Baltimore and fish-belly trusses tend towards ugly. Those assessments are, of course, my personal taste and are not absolutes – the Williamsburg Bridge is a good example of an unattractive suspension bridge – but I’ll defend them in debate.
The bridge above was built in 1889 by the Chicago & Northwestern Railway over the Rock River in western Illinois. It’s due west of Chicago, not all that far from where the Rock River joins the Mississippi, opposite Davenport, Iowa. It was reinforced in the 1920s and is still in service, for an impressive 131 years of carrying trains.
The picture above, taken shortly before 1900, shows a plaque on the portal:
It’s nice to see that the bridge was painted less than ten years after construction – probably part of the reason it has survived – but the construction plaque above is what I’m interested in. “BUILT BY LASSIG BRIDGE AND IRON WORKS CHICAGO ILL 1886”. Lassig apparently built a lot of bridges for the C&NW before being merged into the huge American Bridge Company in 1900. In addition to liking the appearance of the bridge, I may have a mild case of plaque envy.
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