Amador County, California Bridges: Lawrence Road across the South Fork of the Cosumnes River

March 2013 (38.5468°, -120.7240°) Lawrence Road Bridge

A little downstream from yesterday's Tyler Road Bridge is the two span, steel girder Lawrence Road Bridge (28C0028) across the South Fork of the Cosumnes River. Like the previously studied (3/16/2013) Sweeney Road Bridge (across the North Fork), this bridge is also made from the undercarriage of railroad cars. Apparently they are strong enough to support even large (28.9 ton) trucks. Unlike the Sweeney Road Bridge, the girder webs on the Lawrence Bridge still support the barrier rail but the deck is narrower on today's bridge. The Sweeney Road Bridge must have been made from two train cars sitting side by side for each span.  Both bridges have 32.5 ft spans, which must be the length of a railroad car. The Lawrence Bridge was built in 1960 and carries about 65 vehicles a day.

Amador County, California Bridges: Lawrence Road across the South Fork of the Cosumnes River by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.