Greene County Trestle - near Bloomfield, IN
Posted by: 
Web-ling
N 39° 04.436 W 086° 51.221
16S E 512657 N 4324992
Third-largest trestle railroad bridge in the world!
Waymark Code: WM82T7
Location: Indiana, United States
Date Posted: 01/17/2010
Views: 24
Text is quoted from
ingenweb.org.
Greene County Trestle, Richland Creek Viaduct, Tulip Trestle or Viaduct and Solsberry Viaduct and even as the Bloomfield Viaduct, Tulip Railroad Bridge. This Greene county historic landmark is refered to by all the names depending on who is talking about it. The Illinois Central Railroad crossing streaches from hill to hill across Richland Creek about six miles west of Solsberry. As the railroad engine would not perform on more than a three percent grade and eastern Greene county terrian was vast hills and hallows it was neccessary to construct a steel trestle across the Richland Creek bottom between Tulip and Solsberry.
It took great orginization to construct the trestle and the first needed item was money. It was first owned by the Indiana Southern Railroad, and Illinois Central Gulf, another railroad company is said to have secretly financed it.
Work on the bridge started on May 22, 1905 when a ground breaking ceremony was led by Joe Moss on the W.D. Ritter farm. A large crowd turned out and Joe Moss had the honor of dumping the first scraper of earth on the long-awaited railroad line.
By late October, a pile driver was at work, managed by the Illinois Central Railroad bridge crew; a stone crusher owned by L.D. Burcham was grinding limestone for the piers and abutments.
It was built in 1906 in just three months and is offically known as Bridge X75-6, at one point it is 157 feet high [one account says 180 feet high] and 2,295 feet long and some say 2,307 feet to be exact, which is one-half miles long. It is the third longest bridge of its type in the world. The total weight including the track is estimated at approximately 2,895 tons.
Historic photo from ingenweb.org
It was built by the Indianapolis Southern Railroad (later owned by the Illinois Central Railroad) in 1906 while the Indianapolis to Switz City line was being constructed at a cost of $1,000,000. The total cost of this project is said to have been about $246.504; and a bridge engineer from Chicago estimated that to construct it today would be around $10,000 per foot or over $20 million.
Posted coordinates are for a parking area just south of the bridge.
Current photo of bridge