|
A run-of-the-mill "stock" photograph of the Gateway Western Railway (GWWR) iron truss lift bridge
spanning the Illinois River at Pearl, Illinois. There aren't many iron truss lift bridges any more,
and very few are rail bridges. Different from a draw bridge which is hinged at one end and tilts the
other end upward, the entire span of a lift bridge is raised horizontally using massive winches and
counterweights in the towers at each end of the lifting span. This is one of three iron truss lift
bridges on the lower part of the Illinois River. They are raised to allow passage of barges that
travel up and down the river. The other two are highway bridges at locations north and south of this
one. The GWWR is a Class II railroad that operates across the midwestern U.S.
If the bridge looks low to the water, it isn't. The water is high to the bridge; very high! It's only
a couple feet below the main horizontal roadbed girders. After weeks of rain in the entire region, the
Illinois was already above flood stage. Two days before making this photograph there were several days
of yet more heavy rain in the region. Large rivers can take upward of a week to crest following heavy
rains. Here, the Illinois was already over 15 feet above flood stage and still rising. It was
expected to crest two days later with even more rain predicted at the same time. I had to make quite a
few detours around flooded highways to get to the bridge using unpaved county and farm roads, passing
hundreds of acres of flooded corn fields, many of which had already been planted and would not survive
the flooding. About two miles before the bridge I passed a team sandbagging levees around fields that
had not flooded yet.
| 
