BRIDGE DISASTERS IN
AMERICA
The Cause and the Remedy
BY
GEORGE L. VOSE
AUTHOR OF "MANUAL FOR RAILROAD ENGINEERS AND ENGINEERING
STUDENTS," "LIFE AND WORKS OF GEORGE W. WHISTLER,
CIVIL ENGINEER," ETC.
LEE AND SHEPARD PUBLISHERS
10 MILK STREET
Next Old South Meeting House
1887
NOTE.
The substance of the following pages appeared originally in "TheRailroad Gazette." It was afterwards reproduced in pamphlet form, andhas since been several times delivered as an address to variousbodies, the last occasion being before the Legislature ofMassachusetts, 1887. It is now re-published, with some new matteradded, in the hope that the public attention may be called to asubject which has so important a bearing upon the public safety.
By LEE AND SHEPARD.
BRIDGE DISASTERS IN AMERICA.
Nearly all of the disasters which occur from the breaking down ofbridges are caused by defects which would be easily detected by anefficient system of inspection. Not less than forty bridges fall inthe United States every year. No system of public inspection orcontrol at present existing has been able to detect in advance thedefects in these structures, or to prevent the disasters. After adefective bridge falls, it is in nearly every case easy to see why it[Pg 4]did so. It would be just about as easy, in most cases, to tell inadvance that such a structure would fall if it ever happened to beheavily loaded. Hundreds of bridges are to-day standing in thiscountry simply because they never happen to have received the loadwhich is at any time liable to come upon them.
A few years ago an iron highway bridge at Dixon, Ill., fell, while acrowd was upon it, and killed sixty persons. The briefest inspectionof that bridge by any competent engineer would have been sure tocondemn it. A few years later the Ashtabula bridge upon the LakeShore Railroad broke down under an express train, and killed overeighty passengers. The report of the committee of the OhioLegislature appointed to investigate that disaster concluded, first,[Pg 5]that the bridge went down under an ordinary load by reason ofdefects in its original construction; and, secondly, that the defectsin the original construction of the bridge could have been discoveredat any time after its erection by careful examination. Hardly had thepublic recovered from the shock of this terrible disaster when theTariffville calamity added its list of dead and wounded to the longroll already charged to the ignorance and recklessness whichcharacterize so much of the management of the public works in thiscountry.
There are many bridges now in use upon our railroads in no way betterthan those at Ashtabula and Tariffville, and which await only theright combination of circumstances to tumble down. There are, by thelaws of chance, just so many persons who are going to be killed on[Pg 6]those br