Colossus of the new river

[landnrailroader]

At least that is what TRAINS called it in a issue from around 1964. Between 1961 & 1963, with the help of Oman Contruction Co. (then HQ was in Nashville), I don't know if the company still exists, several miles of new track was laid between Danville, KY & Oakdale, TN. The purpose was to eliminate the tunnels that provided a reason to call the line, THE RATHOLE. The cost of this activity exceeded the cost of the entire original line when constructed in the 1875-1885 period. A portion of the new line was between Helenwood & Robbins, TN and this eliminated 3 tunnels, a restricted speed bridge, and heavy grades north & south down into, and out of, the New River valley. This New River joins the Clear Fork R. a few miles to the northwest to form the S. Fork of the Cumberland R. The track from Helenwood down to the east end of the old bridge stayed in service at least until after I left the Southern in 1978. This was to service the Brimstone RR, famous with railfans for it's Shay locomotive. Southern acquired the Brimstone sometime between 1956 & 1965 but it is abandoned today. (Included in this route however)

To reduce the grade required bridging the New River at a higher elevation, like more than 300 feet above the water level. The bridge was (and is) immense, 1607 feet in length. So here is a screen capture out of TSRE. I find it relatively easy to place this structure, which is in 3 parts, and then use key in's to properly position it.

landnrailroader NEW_RIVER_ORTS.jpg

[landnrailroader]

This bridge is about 2 miles north of the original bridge and the deck truss over the river part of it, still exists. I,ll be able to get it close to correct and then guess at the viaducts leadiing to it. I do have a picture of them or sorts on a video clip that was originally a 8mm movie film, taken in May 1956 BY ME. The old bridge had a 25mph limit on it as I recall, may have been less and it was only 100 feet or less over the river so the tracks had to drop down grade in either direction about 200 feet and then climb back out of the valley. You can go to -84.5584/36.3957 on Google Earth to see this structure in the wild so to speak.

Jerry

[pwillard]

You do need to enter the coords the other way around or you end up in the polar regions.



https://earth.google.com/web/@36.39554363,-84.55842288,354.16676112a,24604.51917873d,1y,0h,0t ,0r/data=OgMKATA

So this ^^^ is probably better

[landnrailroader]

Hair Pulling Time and I haven't got much left. I have used TSM for many years with no serious problems and the one that cropped up today may not be serious but it is frustrating. I created the "Colossus" with TSM, no sweat. Then yesterday I created the center span of the old bridge (which can be seen from the nearby highway in Google Earth) and that went fine. So today, I started creating the end span, basically a box of girders, 100 feet long, 35 feet high, and with 4 sections, each 25 wide. Across the track the bridge is 17feet wide. Now I like to generate the end product occasionally as I go to make sure that the transparent areas are correct etc. So I create one side, and generate it. No sweat, load it into a test route and it appears okay. So, add the 2nd side and now when generated there should be assemblies, 17 feet apart (out to out), BUT NO, THERE IS STILL JUST ONE. Well I think maybe these two should be joined into a single part, so I do that and generate it, but still just one side shows up. Any ideas? At this point in my 85 years, I don't think Blender is an option.

J. H. Sullivan

[pwillard]

Sadly, I became very frustrated with TSM way to long in the past for me to me any help.

[landnrailroader]

The only really frustrating part about TSM is that it wasn't assembled by anyone familiar with 3D CAD terminology, so the definitions of some views and commands is a bit odd. I was manager of a large CAD system at CSX Engr. Dept. for 21 years and so my brain expects TSM to work like 3D CAD but it does and it doesn't. As for the current issue, apparently something had corrupted the project file in such a way that a previous definition of the structure was locked in place. So I saved the assembly as a part and created a new project file. Then I inserted the saved assembly and added the parts I was attempting to add. This time everything worked fine so I just ASS/U/ME the original project file was corrupted some way. ASS/U/ME was on a little desk item that every Southern Railway officer had to have on his desk in the Brosnan era. It was to remind us that assume leads to making an ASS out of U and ME. We also had another one that had a jumble of letters on it "YCSFSOYA". It meant "You Can't Sell Freight Sitting On Your Ass". I kept the first one and put it on my desk at CSX and within a few months several more showed up on desks.

Jerry

[landnrailroader]

After correcting the problem mentioned above. Still not sure what it was, but I think it was a boo-boo in the project filee. Here from a drone, just south of the old bridge, we see the truss portions of the old bridge and in the distance (about 1.5 miles or so) the new New River bridge. The old one has steel tower viaducts on both end, the north end all on about a 7D curve - I used 250M radius in order to have bridge rails. South end is mostly straight.

Jerry OLD_NR_01.jpg

[pwillard]

Looks really nice. Definitely huuuuuuuge.

[landnrailroader]

On the first district, about 15 miles north of Danville, KY is a bigger one. Not quite as long but over 300 feet high, double track, and when the line was double tracked around 1912 or so, they built the new bridge around the old one without stopping traffic. Been over it more than a 100 times too. The line originally had 27 tunnels, now there are 4, but as I am including most of that lines that were bypassed in 1961-63, I'll have 15 or more tunnels.

Jerry

[eric]

I've seen the old bridge a few times when driving by on US-27.

Hadn't thought to look for the new one, but I'll have to do that next time I'm driving down. Usually by the time we get to Oneida, stopping to sightsee isn't high on the list of things to do.

[tarrant75]

Looks great! I started building a version of this bridge a few years back, but didn't get the supports put in, nor did I really get to texturing it.

[landnrailroader]

Eric,
At the time that I worked for the Southern, all of the old bridge was still in place and of course there was the branch down the east side of the New River that serviced the remaining mines south of the village of New River. And the tracks on both sides were kept in good shape against the possibility of needing to use the old route as detour. But when I first checked this area on Google Earth, maybe 10 years ago, only the center truss span of the old bridge still existed. The new bridge is easily accessible on the north end (i.e. right end here) and if you look at Google Earth you will see that there is a dirt or gravel road from the village to the base of the new bridge. I have seen drone video recently on YouTube. So now the old bridge is finished except for some tweaking of the last tower to the right and again, in the distance is the new bridge. There is close to 200 ft. difference between the two in terms of above sea level. The new bridge is level, while the old one is on a .78% grade, descending to the left. Immediately after the old bridge the line switches to up about 1.2%. There were 2 tunnels on the right and 1 on the left but I could not find the 2 on the right on Google Earth. In the image, I left the track yellow lines on to more clearly show where the lines are. Helenwood is out of the image to the upper right, Robbins is to the left.

Jerry new_river03.jpg

[landnrailroader]

Chris, that configuration looks more like the new railroad bridge at Burnside, KY.

Jerry

[tarrant75]

Chris, that configuration looks more like the new railroad bridge at Burnside, KY.

Jerry

I believe you're right. I wanted to do the Rathole as it was in the mid-90's, so that checks out. My apologies for getting things confused.