Wooden train bridge at Cedar River, Washington state, USA, 1917?
5 comments
People back then must have had much better balance. There's always a few in photos standing in places that were certain death.
Plus I do have to wonder, how over or under are the specs for such a thing? It seems to be just "we'll put a bunch of big posts and lots of boards, it'll hold a train."
For reference there is a (low height but very long) wood trestle near me similar in design to this that goes for probably a mile over a swamp and it runs modern trains just fine.
They did some upgrades a while back but they were to the few metal parts over the road. The wood parts are still good enough to hold up modern trains.
I assume they had some idea of how much weight the wood could hold up. Also keep in mind those older trees were much stronger than modern lumber since it was old growth.
modern people just tend to be in bad shape from static office jobs and overeating low quality food. these people who worked at heights building bridges were aware that they had to be careful and sure footed. also you can tell they are all reasonably fit, which makes balance much more natural
I guess there's a bit of selection there as well. If you've managed to not kill yourself for a year or so, you probably know what you're doing. It's not that there weren't deaths, it was just expected that some wouldn't learn the job well enough to continue doing it.
People back then must have had much better balance. There's always a few in photos standing in places that were certain death.
Plus I do have to wonder, how over or under are the specs for such a thing? It seems to be just "we'll put a bunch of big posts and lots of boards, it'll hold a train."
For reference there is a (low height but very long) wood trestle near me similar in design to this that goes for probably a mile over a swamp and it runs modern trains just fine.
They did some upgrades a while back but they were to the few metal parts over the road. The wood parts are still good enough to hold up modern trains.
I assume they had some idea of how much weight the wood could hold up. Also keep in mind those older trees were much stronger than modern lumber since it was old growth.
modern people just tend to be in bad shape from static office jobs and overeating low quality food. these people who worked at heights building bridges were aware that they had to be careful and sure footed. also you can tell they are all reasonably fit, which makes balance much more natural
I guess there's a bit of selection there as well. If you've managed to not kill yourself for a year or so, you probably know what you're doing. It's not that there weren't deaths, it was just expected that some wouldn't learn the job well enough to continue doing it.