Lethbridge Viaduct, Railway bridge in Lethbridge, Canada
Lethbridge Viaduct is a steel railway trestle over the Oldman River in Lethbridge, Alberta. Its deck rests on 33 rigid braced steel towers, with 44 plate girder spans of 20.45 m and 22 of 30.12 m, plus one riveted lattice-truss of 33 m. The dark gray lattice of triangles and X-shapes rises 96 m above the river bed.
The viaduct was constructed between 1907 and 1909 by the Canadian Pacific Railway as a major engineering accomplishment. It replaced an earlier wooden trestle structure and provided a more efficient route across the valley for rail operations.
The viaduct appears in the fourth episode of the 2023 TV series The Last of Us, where editing shows it abandoned for decades and collapsed in the middle. In 2005 its construction was recognized as an event of national historic significance. The bridge is still regularly maintained and used over a century after it opened.
The bridge carries an active Canadian Pacific Railway line, so view it only from public ground and never enter the track area. The steelwork is best seen from the river valley floor, where the full 96-metre height becomes clear. The structure is 1,624 metres long, so choose a vantage point that takes in a long section of the trestle.
When it was built, this was the longest and highest railway trestle in the world, a record it held for many years. The quantity of steel required and transported to build it demonstrated the scale of industrial capabilities at the time.
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