Lawrenceburg Bridge (Baltimore & Ohio Railroad)

The Lawrenceburg Bridge, built for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and now used by CSXT, carries the line over the Great Miami River between Ohio and Indiana.

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The Lawrenceburg Bridge, built for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O) and now used by CSX Transportation, carried the line over the Great Miami River and Flannery Island between North Bend, Ohio, and Lawrenceburg, Indiana. The B&O designated it as Bridge 19/95.

History

The line originated with the Ohio & Mississippi Railway, incorporated on February 14, 1848, and opened between Cincinnati and East St. Louis in 1857. ² The first bridge over the Great Miami had opened a year prior in 1856. That structure used truss spans, likely of wood, before being replaced with three iron Fink through trusses.

In 1894, the bridge was rebuilt with three 210-foot through-truss spans and a 48-bent trestle at the west end. ² It contained about 1,013,000 pounds of metal and measured roughly 1,350 feet in length.

The March 1913 flood destroyed every bridge along the river south of Dayton and severely damaged the Lawrenceburg crossing. ^{1 2} The west pier and spans were washed out, and much of the approach from the Indiana side was lost. ² Floodwaters crested 2½ feet above the base of the rail. A temporary trestle and approach were installed beginning April 7, 1913, and traffic resumed on April 27. Reconstruction of the permanent west pier and two new steel spans followed, with the pier finished on December 27 and all work completed on January 31, 1914.

Severe winter weather in 1917–18 caused another failure. ² On February 12, 1918, three spans were overturned and destroyed after heavy ice accumulated above the bridge, rising eight to ten feet above the rail. Ice congestion on the Ohio River slowed the flow of the Great Miami, and when the ice gorge at Rising Sun broke, the rapid drop in the Ohio drew ice and water from the Great Miami, creating pressure that collapsed the spans. Trains were detoured.

A permanent replacement followed: a double-track bridge with six 210-foot through-truss spans and two 45-foot deck-plate girder spans at each end. ² It stood 16 feet higher than earlier structures and was built with a new substructure of seven main piers, two bank piers, and two abutments. The piers were sunk under air pressure to a foundation 100 feet below the water using reinforced concrete caissons. The bridge opened on October 1, 1921. The project also included revisions to the alignment at the east end.

The finished bridge had 14-foot track centers and a 25-foot clearance. ² It cost $2 million. The B&O’s Engineering Department oversaw the work, including Chief Engineer H. A. Lane, Bridge Engineer P. G. Lang Jr., and District Engineer A. H. Griffith. The American Bridge Company fabricated and erected the spans, while Vang Construction Company of Cumberland, Maryland, built the substructure.

The B&O became part of CSX through a gradual series of mergers that reshaped eastern railroading in the late twentieth century. The B&O first came under the control of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway in the 1960s, and both roads were later consolidated into the Chessie System in 1973. In 1980, the Chessie System merged with the Family Lines companies to form CSX Corporation, which unified its rail operations under CSX Transportation by 1986.

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Gallery

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Details

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Sources

1. “Send Help!” Cincinnati Enquirer, 27 Mar. 1913, p. 5.
2. Lang, Jr., P. G. “Reconstruction of Bridge 19/95, Indiana Division, Crossing the Great Miami River, Lawrencxeburg, Indiana.” Baltimore and Ohio Employees Magazine, Nov. 1921, pp. 16-17.