There was a big bang in a small town in the US state of Pennsylvania this month when a fragmentation explosion brought down the 100-year-old Reynolds Road Bridge.
It was the end to the unloved bridge near Factoryville, population around 1,500. Factoryville is notable for a lack of factories ever since the one and only plant, a wool-into-cloth factory, closed down several years after it opened in the 1800s.
Local residents were not sorry to see the felling of the 40m long, reinforced concrete arch deck bridge over a Canadian Pacific Railway line. For three years the ugly bridge deep within the beautiful Endless Mountain region of north eastern Pennsylvania had been closed because it was crumbling, not just into disrepair, but literally disintegrating.
Metres and metres of rebar along the pedestrian way were laid bare where nature had eroded away concrete. Parts of the structure, named after one of the first settlers in the region, Captain Robert Reynolds, had fallen into the ravine below. Earlier this month the rest of the bridge very quickly followed, when implosion subcontractor CDI shrouded the bridge and ended 100 years of history, and some recent confusion.
The bridge fell into disrepair because it also fell into a legal crack – no person, agency, company or local authority would acknowledge ownership, leaving the bridge in limbo, according to local media. When the old railway company, whose rail lines ran underneath the structure, went bankrupt, the bridge reportedly was not sold off with other assets and this went unnoticed for years, until repairs became urgent in the past decade or so.
Demolition was paid for by the Canadian Pacific Railroad, who now owns the rail lines that were running underneath the demolished bridge, according to local TV station WNEP.
<%$Linker:2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 oLinkExternal Click here Visit crumbling bridge demolished Page false http://wnep.com/2015/05/14/crumbling-bridge-demolished/ false false %> to see local media reports on the bridge’s condition just before demolition.
It was the end to the unloved bridge near Factoryville, population around 1,500. Factoryville is notable for a lack of factories ever since the one and only plant, a wool-into-cloth factory, closed down several years after it opened in the 1800s.
Local residents were not sorry to see the felling of the 40m long, reinforced concrete arch deck bridge over a Canadian Pacific Railway line. For three years the ugly bridge deep within the beautiful Endless Mountain region of north eastern Pennsylvania had been closed because it was crumbling, not just into disrepair, but literally disintegrating.
Metres and metres of rebar along the pedestrian way were laid bare where nature had eroded away concrete. Parts of the structure, named after one of the first settlers in the region, Captain Robert Reynolds, had fallen into the ravine below. Earlier this month the rest of the bridge very quickly followed, when implosion subcontractor CDI shrouded the bridge and ended 100 years of history, and some recent confusion.
The bridge fell into disrepair because it also fell into a legal crack – no person, agency, company or local authority would acknowledge ownership, leaving the bridge in limbo, according to local media. When the old railway company, whose rail lines ran underneath the structure, went bankrupt, the bridge reportedly was not sold off with other assets and this went unnoticed for years, until repairs became urgent in the past decade or so.
Demolition was paid for by the Canadian Pacific Railroad, who now owns the rail lines that were running underneath the demolished bridge, according to local TV station WNEP.
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