Timber

Cool structural exercise!

'Must admit, no clear vision went with me here. 'Had 40 min. of light left & find this very tall, very long (for around here) tressel & had no visible access to the top. I was amazed by the spaghetti of timber, so this is what came of it. There's a few MF from the session, which consumed most of the time, but will finish the roll before marinating.

I cant imagine even where to begin - most disturbing was that big beam at the at bottom with a notched end. Doesn't even look attached. Gordian knot, except those have an elegance an purpose in their design. This is a most captivating and provoking image. And this aspect ratio matches the subject and adds the drama. I hope there is no purpose relying on this structure..

What a splendid structure and I love the complex highlights and shadows in your photograph. I can imagine something like this holding up a bridge in the Midwest during the days of the race to connect sea to shining see by railway.

Svenedin, I heard an audio lecture of one of the train stories about connecting the Trans-Con railroad here. 'Was about an engineer ramming his way through a thick snow block. 'Bloody (literally) insane.

@ HiHo. Yes I bet there was a lot of that kind of thing and an awful lot of dynamite too. That had a rather different attitude to health and safety at work in those days!

These old wood trestles are rather interesting, I think it was common practice to do incremental repairs (since you could pretty much visually inspect every part). I suspect as a matter of practicality, a timber with a bit of rot in one end might be cut short and used elsewhere in a repair which could account for a lot of the odd pieces, strange ends, etc. after years have gone by. A tourist railroad not far from me which was once part of the Reading Railroad still has one wooden trestle. (Bottom rows of this gallery) Although nowhere near the size of HiHo's example, it's not trivial. You can see a few almost new timbers sprinkled through it from when they prepared to start running again. These days it's a sure bet 20 foot 12x12s are a significant expense!

I can't seem to find a picture online, but in western NY state there was once a timber trestle over the Genessee River Gorge that was "800 feet long, 234 feet high and using over 1,600,000 [board?] feet of timber and 108,862 pounds of iron." Supposedly the timber to build it cleared about 200 acres of forest. It's design was claimed to have allowed replacement of any individual part without stopping rail traffic! Talk about redundant design! Alas, in spite of a full time watchman to keep an eye on it, in 1875 it burned after 20-some years and was replaced by an iron structure which is currently subject to a replacement project.

DW, Handsome tressel w/ the more unencumbered 'A' pieces. The concrete foundations make alot more sense. The locomotive detail shots are a treat - espec. the color shot 'inside' what gets all the texture & adds the hues.

I find these structures remarkable. On my trips to the USA I always find the extensive use of timer strange but then you have so much of it so why not use it. In the UK we tended to use brick, stone and later iron as we had cut down so much of our forests. We also had laws on the use of brick after so many cities burnt, including London in the Great Fire of 1666.

I'd go nuts researching and shooting the history of GB. There's so much & espec. so much that was done w/ great beauty. Your cathedrals, even the ruins of ancient ones are spectacular. The sculpture in the historic cemetaries are almost unparallelled. The underground - it just goes on & on. What you described about your church was wonderful. I hope you get lots of opportunity to bring some more of it out. Its a treat.