Foxburg Bridge was a steel-built

truss bridge A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements (typically straight) may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...

in Foxburg,

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. The crossing, which spanned the

Allegheny River The Allegheny River ( ) is a long headwater stream of the Ohio River in western Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York. The Allegheny River runs from its headwaters just below the middle of Pennsylvania's northern border northwesterly into ...

, was built by the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

in the 1920s. It originally had a two-tier design in which the top level carried a branch of Northern Subdivision railroad while the lower level was used by road traffic and pedestrians. This bridge was the third in a series of four bridges to have crossed the Allegheny at this point between Armstrong County on the western bank with Foxburg,

Clarion County Clarion County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, the population was 37,241. Its county seat is Clarion. The county was formed on March 11, 1839, from parts of Venango and Armstrong counties. Clarion Cou ...

, on the eastern side. Although the railroad was closed in the 1960s, the bridge remained open to vehicular traffic until July 3, 2008. It was demolished by explosive implosion on July 24, 2008. The replacement

bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

was built adjacent to the old bridge prior to its demolition.

Predecessors

The first bridge was an iron bowstring arch truss completed in summer 1873 by the

Wrought Iron Bridge Company The Wrought Iron Bridge Company was a bridge fabrication and construction company based in Canton, Ohio, United States. It specialized in the fabrication of iron truss bridges and was a prolific bridge builder in the late 19th century. It was one ...

Canton, Ohio Canton () is a city in and the county seat of Stark County, Ohio. It is located approximately south of Cleveland and south of Akron in Northeast Ohio. The city lies on the edge of Ohio's extensive Amish country, particularly in Holmes and ...

. It had a total length of . Each of its two spans were . They were supported by one pier in the Allegheny River. Revenues for all traffic were collected at a tollhouse. A decade later the bridge was replaced when the

Pittsburgh and Western Railroad The Pittsburgh and Western Railroad was a nineteenth-century, narrow gauge railroad connecting Pittsburgh with coal supplies and the oil field around Titusville, Pennsylvania. Its right-of way formed the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio Rai ...

(later part of the

) laid a line through the area. Due to the demands of a steam haulage, the second bridge was a

Howe truss A Howe truss is a truss bridge consisting of chords, verticals, and diagonals whose vertical members are in tension and whose diagonal members are in compression. The Howe truss was invented by William Howe in 1840, and was widely used as a bridg ...

type built of wood. Work began in September 1882 and was completed in April 1883. The new bridge had a two-tier design: rail traffic would pass over its upper level while horse-drawn transport and pedestrians would use the bottom. The bridge reused the abutments and tollhouse of its predecessor but its central pier was replaced with two columns in the river.

1921 bridge

The double-level steel bridge was built by the

Bethlehem Steel The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succe ...

Bridge Corporation in 1921. The bridge was constructed in three parts adjacent to the wooden bridge. Shortly after the first section was completed, the ''Oil City Derrick'' described the work on August 23, 1921:

MODERN ENGINEERING ACCOMPLISHED WONDER Foxburg, Pa. Aug 22. The substitution of a new steel span, 180 feet long and weighing 400 tons, for a section of the old double decked wooden railroad bridge over the Allegheny at this point, the work of making the change occupying an actual period of only 10 minutes, was an engineering fete witnessed early today by practically all the inhabitants of this place. Placing of the new span was the first step in the reconstruction of the old bridge which is one of the last wooden railroad bridges left in the country. Two more spans of the same weight and dimensions as the first will be put in place, one on September 18 and the other October 16. The method employed by the engineers in making the substitution was apparently simple. The new steel structure was built alongside of the old wooden span, false work erected on the upstream side. Similar false work was built out on the down stream side. Both old and the new structures were set on several hundred small rollers and when all was ready cables which had been rigged from two railroad cranes were attached to the steel span and the signal to pull was given. As the new span rolled from its position it pushed the old structure from its place on the stone piers to a resting place on the false work on the down stream side. Both spans made the journey in less than 10 minutes and an hour later the bridge was ready for regular train service. The work was under the direction of P. J. Lang, bridge engineer for the Baltimore & Ohio railroad and A. C. Clark, district engineer of the same road.

The third and final section was put into place on October 16, 1921. For more than 40 years, the bridge carried a branch of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad's Northern Subdivision over the river. Embankments carrying the line on each side of the river were connected to the bridge by wooden trestles. The branch was closed in 1964; but the rails were not removed until the early 1990s. The route is now in the process of being converted to a

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetcar ...

. At the same time the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

also had a line that ran through Foxburg but it too has been removed and is now in the process of becoming a long-distance walking route.

Removal

The Foxburg Bridge was demolished shortly after 9:30 AM on July 24, 2008 using shaped charges. These were placed at load-bearing points on the bridge causing it to collapse in on itself. The demolition featured in an episode of ''

The Detonators ''The Detonators'', published in 1985, is a novel in the long-running secret agent series ''Matt Helm'' by Donald Hamilton Donald Bengtsson Hamilton (March 24, 1916 – November 20, 2006) was an American writer of novels, short stories, ...

'' on the

Discovery Channel Discovery Channel (known as The Discovery Channel from 1985 to 1995, and often referred to as simply Discovery) is an American cable channel owned by Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company run by CEO David Zaslav. , Discovery Channe ...

. The iron work and the piers were removed shortly afterwards.

References

External links

Webpage dedicated to the Foxburg Bridge and other historic bridges
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070812001217/http://www.historicbridges.org/truss/foxburg/index.htm , date=2007-08-12 Bridges over the Allegheny River Railroad bridges in Pennsylvania Demolished bridges in the United States Demolished buildings and structures in Pennsylvania Truss bridges in the United States Bridges completed in 1921 Road bridges in Pennsylvania Road-rail bridges in the United States Former toll bridges in Pennsylvania Buildings and structures demolished in 2008 1921 establishments in Pennsylvania 2008 disestablishments in Pennsylvania Steel bridges in the United States Bridges in Clarion County, Pennsylvania Bridges in Armstrong County, Pennsylvania