Wood Fired Steam and Wood Structures

Even today, railroads extensively use combustible wood ties and pile trestles but locomotives are typically not spitting out burning embers. Back in the days of wood fired steam when the majority of rail cars and trackside structures were also made of wood, well what could go wrong with that? Here we see what I presume is the Styx trestle or what is left and what has been reconstructed on the Sumpter Valley Ry. after a fire. There is a slight chance that this is Kight trestle which we also know burned at one point. Assuming this is Styx, it was bridge 38A, that is near MP38 between Alder Springs and Antelope. It was 270' long, on a 2.2% grade with 20 deg. of curvature in the trestle. The photographer was looking timetable west down grade. The spur going off to the right led to a series of logging grades, but seems to have remained in place over the years as a place for the B&B crew to set out their cars. The scan is from the SVRR Archive.




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/08/2024 12:24PM by J.B.Bane.