Mile 27 The First Big Steel Bridge

Neither the 1913 nor the 1915 US Government report makes any specific mention of the line between mile 20 and 27, but we can assume it followed the west bank of the Copper River with no notable issues. Nor I have I been able to find any photos specifically identified as taken on this part of the route. One reason I'm doing this blog is to encourage anyone who may have this information to make it available in some way.

But at mile 27, we encounter the first major multi-span steel truss bridge, Bridge 27A, named the Flag Point Bridge, with one 300-foot, one 250-foot, and four 175-foot spans, approached and connected by low pile trestles.

The loco is Number 102, one of three Alco 2-6-0s on the line.

Bridge 27A is discussed in some detail in the 1915 Alaska Engineering Commission report. The AEC was tasked with choosing the route that a US Government-built railroad would take from the Alaskan coast to Fairbanks in the interior. The choice was between a route from Seward via the Turnagain Arm to the Knik River and then up the Susitna River toward Fairbanks, or the proposed Copper River route, which would have used the existing CR&NW and extended it north from Chitina. The final choice, for the Seward-Fairbanks route, was made by President Wilson in February 1915.

Some of the wording in the 1915 AEC report suggests there was disagreement on the AEC regarding the condition of the CR&NW. This focused in some measure on how Bridge 27A was constructed. (I have edited the text here to include a separate plate from the report in line for the purpose of clarity.)

An inspection of some of the bridges would suggest that some of the permanent work called for by the original plans was omitted. The following scheme was used: A temporary trestle was driven parallel to the true axis of the bridge, and at an elevation slightly lower than the final grade. This false work was used to assist in the erection of the bridge as well as to connect the traffic from both sides of the structure.

These temporary approaches have been retained in many cases and made to serve for the permanent line. This causes short sections of 2 per cent grades and temporary alignment, both of which limit the speed of trains.

Other plates from the 1915 report show the jogs in the pile trestle, the great lengths of unfilled pile trestle, and its tendency to wash out.



An Eric Hegg photo of Bridge 27A construction, showing the temporary trestle parallel to the true axis of the bridge, with a pile driver driving the pilings for the concrete abutment next to it to the right.

Lone Janson's The Copper Spike says that the steel bridges themselves were built by a separate company (which I suspect was connected with the American Bridge subsidiary of Morgan's US Steel), while the rest of the railroad was built more cheaply by the contractor Michael Heney, who had built the narrow gauge White Pass and Yukon. While the WP&Y had trestles and tunnels like the Heney sections of the CR&NW, it was a narrow gauge and not a Morgan-level enterprise. This contradiction persists throughout the CR&NW story.

It appears that at least some members of the AEC were disturbed by this contradiction, and it may have played some part in the decision against using the CR&NW as part of the to-be Alaska Railroad.