Evening Republican, Volume 17, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 January 1913 — USE DYNAMITE IN NEW WAY [ARTICLE]

USE DYNAMITE IN NEW WAY

Takes Place of Saw In Solving Bridge Construction Problem in the West. Railroading in the west continually presents new problems to the construction engineer, but the use of dynamite in place of a saw was tried for the first time on a Santa Fe bridge over the San Joaqiiih river, near Fresno, Cal. Concrete abutments and piers had been built .under an old wooden trestletype bridge and the principal girders of the new steel structure prepared and riveted together at a distance ready to be lowered into place from derrick trains. All the earlier stages of the new bridge had been constructed with the wooden bridge as a falsework and without interruption to traffic. But the floor of the wooden bridge was 15 feet higher than the new steel structure was. intended to be. To shorten the supports by sawing would take several days and tie up traffic. The engineers got around the dlfficulty by running the derricks out to the proper points and then placing a small charge of dynamite in each of the wooden supports of.the old bridge just 15 feet below the roadbed. The dynamite shots were discharged simultaneously, t<he old bridge fell, and the entire steel structure dropped into place at once. It took but three hours then to lay the ties and rails. —Popular Mechanics. >