Wahkeena Creek Railroad Bridge

So next up we're looking at the little railroad bridge over Wahkeena Creek, which is the next train bridge east of the one at Bridal Veil that we just looked at. This one sits on top of a girder (either steel or concrete, I'm not sure which) instead of having two of them on the sides, and in general it looks like it might be a recent replacement of an older bridge, but I don't know that either because federal railroad GIS doesn't have that info. What I can tell you is that it has a unique ID of "W1012_OR24759", and a design type of "Unknown". If you had high hopes that this bridge was made with advanced alien technology or something you're likely to be disappointed. I think it just means the data entry intern didn't have that info or couldn't be bothered typing it in.

The one semi-interesting thing about this one is that the rail line also serves as a physical divider between the Wahkeena Falls area (the side I took these photos on), which is a Forest Service day use site, with free parking, and Benson State Park on the far side of the tracks, which has been a pay-to-park fee site as long as I can remember, long before anywhere else nearby was. This is possible because Benson is set up as sort of a walled garden, with no official trails (or, ideally, a railroad-approved skybridge over the tracks) between it and either Wahkeena Falls or Multnomah Falls next door. Otherwise people of the cheapskate persuasion could just park at Wahkeena Falls and haul an inflatable raft over to Benson Lake without paying the state a penny. And now it works both ways: During peak tourist season, the demand for parking at Multnomah Falls far exceeds the available supply, and if visitors could easily use Benson as overflow parking it would probably mess up the whole timed entry ticket scheme they've been using to try to manage crowds over there. And that demand would probably swamp the smaller numbers of people who just want to fish the lake or grill some burgers or whatever else there is to do at Benson itself. And I'm sure these are all very good and responsible reasons for things being how they are, and why they have to stay that way forever, but when you're standing on one side and you can easily see the park on the other side, and there are signs saying you are strictly forbidden from going over there, the whole arrangement just seems incredibly dumb.