Corona-Bayard Road Bridge

 

While exploring the region around Thomas and Davis, West Virginia, I made a side trip to visit some former coal camp communities in extreme western Maryland. By accident, while traveling WV 92, I came across the former Corona-Bayard Road Bridge, which carried Corona-Bayard Road over the North Branch Potomac River between Garrett County, Maryland and Bayard, West Virginia.

 

 

Constructed in 1896 by the Wrought Iron Bridge Company of Ohio, the bridge was a three-span crossing, with two steel beam approach spans and a center pin-connected Pratt through truss. The truss contained five panels with diagonal endposts, and had a main span length of 91.3 feet. It originally had a vertical clearance of 13.7 feet, but at some point prior to 1984, a vertical restriction device was added that capped the clearance to 8.6 feet.

 

On November 25, 1935, the road departments of Maryland and West Virginia agreed to reconstruct the Corona-Bayard Road Bridge, although there is no evidence existing to show what reconstruction work was conducted. New stringers and steel deck were added in 1961, and the spans were strengthened in 1982, and on several occasions between 1982 and 1988.

 

Large trucks hauling coal illegally crossed the bridge on a daily basis, ignoring the posted weight limit that accelerated deterioration of the bridge. On July 8, 1988, the Corona-Bayard Road Bridge was closed to traffic due to the presence of deteriorated fracture critical members, the moderate to severe deterioration in the stringers, the losses on the steel grid deck, the stringer weld attachments to the floor beams that were broken, the tipped and mis-arranged steel bent supporting columns, and extensive rusting.

 

The Corona-Bayard Road Bridge is scheduled for replacement. A bid request was posted on January 11, 2012 with it being due to the office on February 9. The contract for the bridge replacement was let to Carl Belt Inc. on May 15 for the amount of $1,246,205.(6)

 

 

 

 

 

It is a shame that this span is now being replaced after standing for over two decades as a pedestrian and bicycle connection. With the amount of one- and two-lane routes in this area, the historic bridge could have served as encouragement to develop an extensive rural bicycling network. Or at the very least, the span could have been relocated elsewhere for use on a rail-to-trail or within a park.

nice find - i love remote old bridges like this one.

 

for the record, the bridge company was from canton:

 

 

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrought_Iron_Bridge_Company