Thanks for your input. My turntable theory was based on the tapered
girders; I thought that, say, a 90-foot table could have been cut in
half and the girders laid parallel to the create the wide span. But
the undulation of the street beneath suggests that some attention
would have had to be paid to road clearance regardless.
Thanks again,
Jim Dudlicek
--- In BRHSlist@y..., glenehaug@m... wrote:
> On October 16, Don Zinnicker forwarded a question from Jim
Dudlicek,
> Editor of the Naperville Sun, about the Ogden Avenue Underpass. I
> forwarded it to the BNSF Bridge Engineer for a response, and
> evidently he also got an inquiry directly from the Naperville Sun.
>
> Today I got a copy of the answer that BNSF furnished to the
> Naperville Sun. Here is most of what it said:
>
> (The bridge is Br. 30.52 which contains a skewed and tapered Deck
> Plate Girder span fabricated specially to fit the alignment and
> clearance dictated by the highway. The bridge was built by CB&Q in
> 1934-35.)
>
> Most of this makes sense since the span (44') is too short to be a
> turntable. The date is a little suspect, as I recall looking up
the
> same bridge plans a number of years ago while researching the
> construction of the 4th track Downers Grove to Eola. My notes
> indicate 1933. The bridge is 4 track, so it was definitely built
> during the time that the 4th track existed between 1930 and 1934.
>
> Glen Haug
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