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Key Facts |
Bridge Name | Type | Road | Location | City | Crossing |
| Old Goulais Bay Road Bridge | Truss | Old Goulais Bay Road | Algoma District, ON | Rural | Echo River |
Scott Steeves of www.OntHighways.com emailed me and informed me that this bridge has been closed to all traffic, due to a serious structural problem.
Mr. Steeves reports that "Sometime between May and July the southern side of the central pier of the bridge has begun to sink and the bridge now has an impressive lateral lean to it. The bridge is now closed to both vehicular and pedestrian traffic, and I am sure the MTO (who owns Old Goulais Bay Road as an unposted highway) is now slowly formulating a replacement strategy."
Visiting this bridge in May when I did apparently was a rare stoke of luck for me since, it appears I may have made a Sault Ste. Marie trip just in time to see this bridge before barriers were placed in front of it, or worse, the bridge is demolished. I had no idea that the pier was about to fail when I was at this bridge, but I reviewed my photos, and I now notice some things that may have been the beginning of the problem. A look at my zoomed portal view of the bridge shows that the south side trusses are lower in the middle, while the north side at the center, the trusses are higher. In addition, if you follow the lines in the concrete of the piers, they do not parallel the river, and instead are angled downward to the south. I composed a diagram here. The fate of this bridge is similar to that of the State Street Bridge in Michigan, a through truss whose pier has sunk at one end, twisting one of its two truss spans.
I personally think that MTO should instead look at lifting the Bailey Bridge off of the pier, replacing the pier, restoring the trusses, and then placing the trusses back on the new pier. Bailey Bridges were designed to be moved, so it should be a relatively easy job to lift the bridge off of the river. As an old 1944 structure, and as a two-span structure, this is a historically significant bridge. The bridge is on a non-essential road that parallels the Trans Canadian highway 17, and a modern two-lane bridge that can hold millions of tons really isn't needed at this crossing anyway.
Mr. Steeves, sent me a few photos of the bridge as it is today, and I have added those to the photo gallery. Also, below I digitally modified one of Mr. Steeve's photos, to show the tipping pier better. This photo is available below. You can easily see the problem.
Note that the name of the current vehicular road is "Old Goulais Bay Road" and that this bridge is the current and only bridge serving the road. I think the "old" portion of the name means that this may have been the old highway route up before nearby TC-17 assumed its current alignment east of this road. Although not a signed King's Highway today, this road is under MTO jurisdiction.
This is a significant example of a Bailey truss bridge. It features two main Bailey truss spans, plus one small steel stringer approach at both ends of the bridge. I noted 1944 stamps on this bridge that allowed me to peg a date to the trusses on this bridge. Note however it is possible that although the trusses were fabricated in 1944, that this bridge was not erected here until a later date. Regardless, the structure is significant as a very old example of the structure type. Since the Bailey truss was designed as part of World War II, it is impossible for a Bailey bridge to be older than WWII. The Old Goulais Bay Road Bridge sits on large concrete piers which may be from a former bridge. The bridge is a single story, double truss structure, similar to Michigan's Wilbur Road Bridge.
It is important to note that after WWII the design of these bridges changed very little, and indeed still are built in the present day. Usually the newer ones are galvanized steel, and may have less individual parts being used in the trusses. This area of Ontario seems to love Bailey truss bridges, because I spotted in addition to this old Bailey bridge some newer galvanized Bailey bridges elsewhere in the county. However one was even two lanes wide! They clearly were not as old as this bridge, and were unworthy of being considered historic. All these bridges have yellow warning signs reading "Bailey Bridge" before you approach these bridges. Guess they are just to warn people of narrow widths and unusual deck materials. Funny that they read "Bailey Bridge" instead of "Narrow Bridge" or "Caution - Metal Grate Deck" and etc.
