Chilean Bridges: Puente Ferroviario del Río Bio Bio

Another railroad bridge, this one crossing the 2.2 km wide Rio Bio Bio in Concepcion, Chile. The river flows through the second largest city in Chile, and yet there is almost no development along it's banks. The Rio Bio Bio is incredibly wide and it must be a tidal estuary flowing into the sea near Conception.

This railroad structure is composed of parallel top and bottom chords separated by diagonal and vertical members in a Warren truss arrangement. Note the overhead wire and catenary that is used to power the train.

This bridge as well as all the other bridges across the Rio Bio Bio in Concepcion were damaged by last month's earthquake due to strong shaking and lateral spreading of the river banks.

Chilean Bridges: Puente Ferroviario del Río Bio Bio by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.