Rosalia Railroad Bridge, Railway bridge in Rosalia, Washington, US.
The Rosalia Railroad Bridge is a concrete arch bridge in Washington that crosses multiple transportation routes. It has two main spans separated by an embankment, with the western section passing over Pine Creek.
The Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad built this concrete arch viaduct in 1915 to replace an earlier timber trestle. The railroad chose concrete arches partly because the crossing was visible from Steptoe Battlefield State Park and it wanted a striking structure. After the Milwaukee Road went bankrupt in the 1980s, the State of Washington acquired the bridge and right-of-way. It is listed in the National Register of Historic Places for its design.
The bridge was built so that Milwaukee Road passengers and crews crossing it looked down on the tracks of the rival Northern Pacific, and its arches are visible from Steptoe Battlefield State Park. The structure carried the Milwaukee Road until the company's bankruptcy in the 1980s, when the State of Washington took over the bridge and right-of-way.
The bridge stands just south of Rosalia, where the two spans and the central embankment cross Pine Creek, the highway and the Northern Pacific tracks. The structure is visible from Steptoe Battlefield State Park, which gives the clearest overall view of the viaduct.
What makes this bridge special is its design spanning over competing railroad lines. The vertical stacking shows a clever solution to limited space in the area.
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