I was just getting ready to ask that... What's the lengths on the two structures?

They're scary at first, but cool once you get used to them. I recall riding on the back of my dad's motorcycle over a local bridge with the mesh deck. You could see right through it, and at any speed the mesh sort of blurred into nothing, so it seemed like we were flying in air!

Bob -

Good question. Also, I wonder how they are measured; the length of the two bridges themselves, or are the approaches included if they are man made? I don't know about the a-building approach on the Jeffersonville side of the Big Four bridge, but on the Louisville side, the structure that was built starts at ground level and does a loop over itself before it gets up to the bridge proper.

Les

Back in 1959 (or '60), a friend and I visited the L&JB&RR (Big Four) roundhouse at the Preston Street Yard in Louisville and the trainmaster asked us if we'd like to ride the transfer run across the bridge to the Jeffersonville yard and back. We jumped at the chance and rode over on the engine and back in the caboose. When we got back, the TM gave us each a couple of kerosene lanterns. Truly a railfan day to remember!

L&JB&RR had a small fleet of NYC 0-8-0 switchers in steam days and they were maintained in top condition. Even when they were sent out to NYC after the diesels arrived, they were in well maintained paint. When I was a kid my dad took me down to the roundhouse one night and the hostler put us in the cab of one of the switchers for a ride out of the roundhouse and a spin on the turntable. The roundhouse was really nice looking with arched brickwork over the windows. I always thought it was the most photogenic roundhouse in Louisville. Unfortunately, it was in the flood zone and the entire yard area went under water whenever the Ohio rose to substantial flood levels.

The roundhouse also serviced C&O locomotives and there are some really nice photos of the scene by Jack Fravert in the "Trackside Around Louisville (East)" book.

Jack also shot movies and those are in our DVD "Reflections of the C&O Vol. 1".
The DVD shows C&O's use of the Big Four Bridge approaches as a wye to get their freight trains in or out of the Preston Street Yard in the early 1950's.

The last interurban use of the bridge was in Oct, 1939 when the Indiana RR ran their final cars to Louisville. A movie sequence shot on the last day from one of the interurbans shows the car running on the bridge and the approaches on each side of the bridge. It may be the only movie shot on the bridge and I included it in two of our videos: "Indiana Railroad" and "Streetcars of River City". The River City is a documentary of Louisville's street railways and the interurban system owned by Louisville Railway Company called Louisville & Interurban Ry.

-Jim Herron