Bridges

The rehabilitation of Oklahoma’s Route 66 William H. Murray “Pony” Bridge connects the past and future.

During a recent inspection of the bridge, advanced corrosion was identified on numerous gusset plates along the interface with the truss bottom chords.

As of 1891, Winona, Minnesota had two railroad bridges built in 1871 and 1891. Wagon traffic across the Mississippi river consisted of a wooden trestle on the Wisconsin side built to Latsch Island in 1887 at a cost of $9,500. A ferry then carried them to the city of Winona. As traffic increased, a need for a bridge became evident, and the Winona City Council decided to build it as a toll bridge to be funded by bonds.

Winona, Minnesota, is located between St. Paul and Lacrosse on the westerly bank of the Mississippi River. It already had a railroad bridge across the Mississippi built in 1871. The Winona and Southwestern Railroad (later Winona and Western Railroad) ran from Winona northwesterly along the river to Minnesota City and then ran southwesterly through Rochester towards Osage with plans to extend to Omaha. The railroad was looking for a bridge to connect with railroads in the State of Wisconsin and to provide access to the rich iron, copper, and lumbering regions of Northern Wisconsin. It joined with the Chicago, Burlington & Northern Railroad and the Green Bay, Winona, and St. Paul Railroad to form the Winona Bridge Railway that would build the bridge.

This is a shortened version of a Safety Alert published by CROSS (Collaborative Reporting for Safer Structures) and CHIRP (Confidential Human Factors Incident Reporting Programme) Maritime. It will be of interest to the practicing engineer who wishes to understand the risks to our infrastructure from large vessels and how to design relative to this risk. Local and national authorities should be aware of the potential risks so that they can put contingency plans in place. The Alert was initiated by the Francis Scott Key Bridge collapse in Baltimore in March 2024. It does not aim to analyze that tragic event; instead, it offers a general overview of the measures that can be taken to mitigate the risk of future catastrophic bridge strikes.

UHPC provides a competitive structural rehabilitation option for infrastructure, and with continued research and refinement, it could become a standard tool in the culvert rehabilitation toolbox.