Calaveras County, California Bridges: Parrots Ferry Bridge across the Stanislaus River (2)

May 2013 (38.04583 Degrees, -120.44889 Degrees) Parrots Ferry Bridge

A closer view of the center span on the Parrots Ferry Bridge. According to the Highest Bridges website, this was one of the first uses of lightweight concrete, which apparently needs a higher camber and so the superstructure began to slump. The bridge engineers became concerned and eventually installed a brace at midspan which supported the superstructure and stopped the slumping.

I imagine the haunched superstructure was cast on formwork, which must have been somehow attached to the piers or on very tall falsework.

Calaveras County, California Bridges: Parrots Ferry Bridge across the Stanislaus River (2) by Mark Yashinsky is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.