The famous Sayre, PA walkbridge!
for 91 years it spanned
the Lehigh Valley Railroad's
engine terminal and yards
in Sayre, PA.
If you photographed the
LV in Sayre anytime during the 20th century,
you walked up on that
bridge!
I was fortunate to know
the bridge during the last 5 years of its life.
from 1983-1987 you could
find me up there all the time,
photographing Conrail
trains in Sayre.
and I sadly documented
"the end" in 1987.
Foolishly, I never took
any measurements of the bridge! :(
I was only age 14-18
during those 5 years, and it never occured
to me then that I might
someday want measurements..
at least I had the foresight
to take some detail shots..thats something at least.
Probably somewhere dimensions,
and perhaps even drawings exist!
but I havent seen any
yet.
I am making this webpage
with the intention of developing detailed
drawings of the bridge,
for historic documentation, and for modeling purposes.
If someone made measurements,
perhaps this page will help track them down!
Here are the detailed
photos I have of the bridge so far..
if you have any you would
to add to this project, please send them in!
(with full credit for
your photo of course!)
The B&W Aerial photos
are from April, 1971, and are highly cropped to focus just on the bridge.
(there is much more to
those photos than what I am showing here!)
they are from the Library
of Congress collection.
the original images can
be found here:
http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/
do a search for "Sayre
PA" and you can find them all..including amazing aerial photos
of the entire Sayre yard!
The rest of the color
photos are mine..again heavily cropped.
if you would like to
see the originals, just drop me a line.
disclaimer..im not 100% certain that
all the years I placed on my photos are
absolutely correct! They *are* all
between 1984 and 1987..but, for example,
one marked "1986" might actually be
1987, etc...my original photos are all at the Sayre museum,
and I always wrote dates on the back.
(all the photos on this page are scanned
from my original negs..and I dont have dates with my negs..)
so I simply have to visit the museum
to get the proper dates for all my photos,
right down to the exact day. As soon
as I do that, I will change all the dates on these photos
to make them 100% accurate..
Let the fun begin!
Scot Lawrence
September 2005
sscotsman@yahoo.com
Using this aerial photo,
I have calculated that the bridge was 385 feet long.
thats just a rough estimate,
but its close.
I would like to get *factual*
dimensions..
but based on this first
rough overall dimension of 385 feet, that would make
a model of the bridge
13 feet long in 1/29 scale! (the scale I model in)
I might seriously consider
building a 1/29 scale model of it someday!
if I have the room for
it on my future garden railroad..
In HO scale, its a more
reasonable 4.4 feet..still big! but doable.
I have only ever seen
one model of the bridge, on the HO scale model railroad
that was in the first
Sayre museum back in the mid 80's.
it wasnt scale length,
it was "selectively compressed", but it looked good!
I have photos of it somewhere..I
will try to dig some up.
thats it for now!
Scot Lawrence
September 2005
sscotsman@yahoo.com
