Steel truss bridge, Mill Creek

Clearly I still have unslaked road thirst, as yet another bridge shot moved me to post. I think I like truss bridges best of all, because so much of the beautiful engineering is visible right above your head as you drive them. This bridge stands on State Road 42 in Putnam County, Indiana. Putnam County seems to have more than its share of great old bridges.

I was in no hurry and it was a warm day for mid-October, so I spent about a half hour on this bridge, photographing it from many angles. I like this photograph best of all, as the lines guide the eye to where the road curves. Doesn’t it make you wonder what lies ahead?

State Road 42 has one other steel truss bridge and two concrete arch bridges – one of which is breathtaking. See them all on my roads pages.


Comments

3 responses to “Captured: Steel truss bridge over Mill Creek”

  1. Lone Primate Avatar
    Lone Primate

    This is a great shot; really speaks to the rule of thirds. Presumably this bridge is still open… not much of a shoulder there; I hope you held your stomach in while you were shutterbugging! :) Yeah, they don’t really build them that way anymore, do they? They’re fairly straightforward concrete-over-box-girder troughs these days. Truss bridges are a sort of “bumblebees can’t fly” engineering mystery… the idea of adding weight to something to hold it up is Roadrunner physics to me. :)

    1. Jim Avatar

      The bridge is still open all right. SR 42 is a pretty low-traffic highway as four-lane US 40 and I-70 lie nearby and follow a very similar corridor. I don’t recall encountering a single car while standing on this bridge.

      Those concrete-over-box-girder bridges are known as “ugly concrete eyesore bridges” (UCEBs) by bridgefans!

      Speaking of bridgefans, here’s a link to the page for this bridge on my favorite bridge geek site. http://bridgehunter.com/in/putnam/15830/

  2. Lone Primate Avatar
    Lone Primate

    I like the photo you took of the lost bridge from its replacement, along with the dotted line map (with ref. to the link). :)

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

%d bloggers like this: