Sohl Avenue Railroad Bridge

Most Recent Visit To Bridge: August 12, 2006

About The Grand Calumet River and The Presence of Truss Bridges

It generally takes a decent sized river to get a truss bridge to be on a railroad / river crossing. That is why the state of Michigan for example has few railroad truss bridges, since most of their rivers are smaller. Similarly, a river must be a certain size to transport larger boats thus requiring movable bridges. Given this, a multi-span movable truss bridge was absolutely the last thing I expected to find on the Grand Calumet River, but here is one of two I found! The Grand Calumet River today is not "grand" in any sense of the word. It is the smallest width-wise of all three "Calumet" rivers, smaller in fact than the regular Calumet River and the Little Calumet River. The river is so small that many modern bridges crossing this river simply use culverts to cross it! The river is not very grand in that it is the most disgusting body of water I have ever seen. When I first saw this river from I-90, the first thought I had was that the water was a greyish-green! U.S. Steel at Gary used to dump toxic waste, including things like mercury other unpleasant things in it. Even today, I have heard rumors that it has 90% storm drain and industrial drainage to it. You can see the greyish color to the water in the above photo. Anyway, it is one sick-looking river, and this bridge is one of the few things adding beauty to the river. I am unsure why there are movable truss bridges on this river. From what I can see, it looks like the river might have once been carrying more water, and thus was larger. The two-span bridge passes over considerable distance of dry land, suggesting that once there might have been water there. So many canals and such have been dug in this area south of Chicago that it wouldn't surprise me if something has changed, and that long ago this river was large enough for boats. Today all it amounts to is a creek.

About the Sohl Avenue Railroad Bridge

The bridge seen here is a full-size truss swing bridge with timber approaches. Most of the mechanics have long been removed, although the roller nest the bridge swung on is still present testifying to this bridge's movable past. Lattice is present on both sides of the top and bottom chords as well as the end posts. L-lacing can be found on the verticals. The structure in pin connected. The three-culvert crossing seen just east of this bridge on Sohl Avenue is a stark comparison of the transition from the Grand Calumet River from a navigable waterway to a small creek/ditch.