The Wayne Railroad Bridge is an out-of-service bridge over Twelvepole Creek along Norfolk Southern Railway’s Wayne Branch in Wayne, West Virginia.
The Wayne Railroad Bridge was constructed over Twelvepole Creek in 1911 by the Virginia Bridge & Iron Company of Roanoke, Virginia. 1 The Baltimore through truss was last painted in 1989.
The first iteration of the bridge was built in 1891 along the Norfolk & Western Railway’s (N&W) extension towards Ohio from the Pocahontas Coalfield in the southwest part of West Virginia. 2 3 Construction of the extension began in December 1890, with trains regularly operating between Kenova and Dunlow, including a bridge over Twelvepole Creek in Wayne, by mid-December 1891. 4
The N&W completed a new 59-mile alignment along the Big Sandy River between Naugatuck and the Ohio River at Ceredo in 1904, and the alignment between Dunlow and Kenova became known as the Twelvepole Division. 5 In the 1910s, the N&W rebuilt many of the original bridges along the circa 1891 alignment with structures erected either by the Virginia Bridge & Iron Company of Roanoke, Virginia or the American Bridge Company of New York, to accommodate heavier trains and added additional passing sidings along the Twelvepole alignment to keep pace with traffic demands. 6 In later years, N&W’s successor, Norfolk Southern Railway, referred to the Twelvepole Division as the Wayne Branch.
The last operating coal mine along the Wayne Branch closed in 2015, 7 ending all traffic along the line south of Ceredo.
Details
- State: West Virginia
- Route: Norfolk Southern Railway
- Status: Abandoned or Closed
- Type: Baltimore Through Truss
- Total Length: 0
- Main Span Length: 0
- Spans: 0
- Deck Width: 0
- Roadway Width: 0
- Height of Structure: 0
- Above Vertical Clearance: 0
- Navigational Clearance: 0
Sources
- Plaque.
- Krebs, C. E., D. D. Teets, Jr., and I. C. White. “Historical and Industrial Development.” West Virginia Geological Survey: Cabell, Wayne and Lincoln Counties. Wheeling: Wheeling News Litho, 1913. 4-5. Print.
- Frey, Robert L. “Norfolk & Western Railway.” e-WV: The West Virginia Encyclopedia. 01 Aug. 2016.
- Bakic, Tracy D. “Fleming Thru Girder.” West Virginia Historic Bridge Inventory, 4 Apr. 2013.
- Krebs, C. E., D. D. Teets, Jr., and I. C. White. “Historical and Industrial Development.” West Virginia Geological Survey: Cabell, Wayne and Lincoln Counties. Wheeling: Wheeling News Litho, 1913. 4-5. Print.
- “Norfolk & Western Railway.” West Virginia Railroads. N.p., 31 Jan. 2008. Web. 6 Jan. 2010. Article.
- Pasley Testimony, United States Senate, 2016.