Old RR Bridge at Kings Mt, MP 140

[J-man]

On my way back home the other night, our train was traveling slowly on track two pretty close to MP 140.  I noticed what looked like the remnants of an old RR bridge that was probably 200ft long or longer. Anybody have some info on this. If I can get a photo of it, will.

[E.M. Bell]

Thats interesting to say the least. The trackage South of the 501 bridge at Kings Mountain should be on the as built alignment as far as I know, and I cant think of what they would have needed a bridge that big for between the 139 and Waynesburg. See if you can gets some pics...

[J-man]

I sure will Emmett. I too have been wondering why there would even need to be a bridge there considering it's only 30 ft or so from the main line.  You can look closely on both ends as the ground is built up with rock like it used to be an old rail bed.

[J-man]

I caught a hot 177 ( ) Wednesday and was able to snap a few as we passed by, but... they're  not really good pictures but you can see some of what I'm talking about. They would be much better had I been able to go through the trees, but alas, I could not. Anyways the first one is of the North end and you can see the old bridge ends that extend down a little ways. The one below it is of the South end, but you can't see as much .

[butch]

I love a good mystery.  According to a pre-1910 track profile of the CNO&TP, there was only one bridge between Kings Mountain (mp 136) and Waynesburg (just north of mp 140).  Bridge 50 was at mp 137.1, which looking at an aerial view, is probably just below where the pond/lake is now.  Bridge 52 on this profile is at Pittman Creek, and Bridge 51 is not listed.  This would suggest that at some point early on, Bridge 51 was replaced with a fill.  Going back to the aerial view, it appears that the best location for a bridge between Bridge 50 and 52 is actually a gulley about .5 mile south of the probable Bridge 50 location.  This combined with a slight wiggle in the line in this area could suggest a slight realignment to the west.  Or not.  But it might be worth a hike to check out.

[E.M. Bell]

There ya go Josh..if anyone can solve this mystery..its butch!!

[butch]

OK, I wanted to get out the other day, so I made a little sojourn down to Kings Mountain to check out my theory on the location of Josh?s bridge remains.

I walked up from Jacobs Loop Road.  As Josh stated, the old bridge location is by the fill just south of MP 140.  In using the 1906 CNO&TP track diagram, this location was MP 137; but realignments over the years between Wilmore and High Bridge and other locations probably account for the mileage differences. 

I first came to my theorized location of the former Bridge 51.  This is now a good-sized fill and I could find no evidence of a bridge or realignment.  This is not surprising since the bridge was already gone in 1906.  My guess is that the fill was placed on the former bridge site.

About halfway between that site and the valley where the pond is located, there is what appears to be old ROW moving off to the west of the current alignment.  While part of it has been filled in, it does align with the path to the bridge abutments that I discovered shortly thereafter.  Speaking of, once I got to the valley, I was immediately able to locate the south abutment.  It is still in relatively good shape and I even found some spikes still in a support.  Most of the foundations for the bridge supports are still visible.  Fishing Creek flows at the base of the south side of the bridge location and several more supports are visible following the path of the bridge from the creek to the north abutment. 

The north abutment is a bit more grown-up, but there is still evidence of several concrete structures.  The ROW north of the bridge is a little more defined and appears to rejoin the current alignment at the next curve.

Interestingly, there appears to be an old highway roadbed that came around below the west side of the north abutment, under the old bridge, and then turned up the valley.  Currently there is a large pond (labeled appropriately, Fishing Creek Pond on the map) on the east side of the ROW fill, possibly created when the tracks were realigned.  My guess on when that was, was when the ROW was expanded to allow for double-tracks, the bridge was by-passed with the fill.  This would account for the slight shift of the ROW to the east. 

Anyway, it was fun checking it out.  I have posted some pictures under the Photos tab at: http://home.insightbb.com/~heyref51/index.htm.  All of my older pictures are under Links until I get a chance to clean them up.

ba

[E.M. Bell]

Thats good detective work Butch. I have been across fishing creek road a bunch of time between Kings Mountain and Waynesburg, and had never noticed that before, even with the foliage off the tree's Looks like that was a rather high bridge, as the RofW is way above the valley there. 

[kbarnett]

There are also some abutments still in place at BridgeFork pond about MP 191.5 on the east side and the yard at Stearns has some bridge abutment remains on the east side of the main. when they built the fills it created the ponds for S.C. & L. co.

[J-man]

Butch, thats some mighty fine detective work! The guy's land who is at the bottom of that place also works on the railroad and so did his father. He simply refers to it as the old Kings Mt. trestle and there used to be a fill pond around the area where they would fill up steam engines.  He also mentioned they used to conduct hangings off of it, but that's neither here nor there.

Good info Butch, and I enjoyed those photos 

[butch]

The old fill pond might explain the concrete structures down by the current pond on the east side.  And it could also explain what appears to be an road going under the old trestle, since they would have needed a way to access the water.  Does your friend have any old pictures of the trestle?

ba

[J-man]

I'm not too sure butch, but I'll ask!

[butch]

I ran across this old picture of Bridge 50 in a thesis at UK.  Imagine the current fill to the left of the bridge.  The old concrete remains by the lake and the old bridge supports I found fit; the only thing not in evidence is the old road under the bridge which I suppose could have been part of the construction of the current fill. 

[E.M. Bell]

The construction of that bridge is almost identical to the  still in use Green River Bridge at Southfork.  I had often wondered how old the Soutfork bridge was, as there are older, cut stone footers visible there, leading one to believe that the bridge had been replaced, or at least reconfigured at one time. I would suppose that the CS used that as a standard bridge design.

Also of interest in your pic from UK is the pond below the old bridge. Id almost have to say that was man made by the RR, probably to feed to water tower at Kings Mountain. The squared off dam/burm right under the bridge gives that way. There is another pond that looks almost identical off of aptly named "Tank Pond Road" near Gradison. 

[butch]

Ask and ye shall receive...at least sometimes.

According to my notes on the thesis, the Southfork Bridge was replaced in 1905-the older footers are visible in the pix below.

[E.M. Bell]

Just what all in the way of pictures are you hiding anyway??    Thats pretty neat..

You didnt mention the date that your pics where taken, but it sure hasnt changed much over the years...

[butch]

I'm not hiding anything, you just have to know what to ask for.   :

I run across all kinds of stuff looking for historical info on tunnels.  The thesis is basically about bridges on the CNO&TP.  It had profiles and a couple of bridge pictures that included tunnels. 

My guess is the pictures were taken between 1905-1909.  That is based on the comment in the text that the bridge had been replaced in 1905 and the date on the thesis is 1909.