Saturday, December 06, 2025

McCord Creek RR Bridge

Ok, here's the next Columbia Gorge train bridge, and this is one I was initially not going to bother with, even in this already sort of dubious sub-project, because it sure looks like it's just a big concrete culvert under the tracks, and those don't count because there would be no end to this project if I did that. But I saw that the Federal Railroad Administration GIS layer for train bridges has a database entry for it, so I guess legally it counts as a bridge. And thanks to that db entry I can tell you it has a Design Type of "Unknown", and a UniqueID of "W31_OR79215". And more importantly, and regardless of whether it's really a bridge or not, this is a low-stakes and (as far as I can tell) completely harmless golden opportunity to shrug and publicly go along with at least one federal government decision that (just between us) may not be entirely fact-based, I mean, if you look at it from a pre-2016 standpoint.

If you'd like to go see it and decide for yourself whether you think it even counts as a bridge, one way to do that is to park at the Elowah Falls trailhead and take the HCRH Trail (i.e. the paved path next to the freeway) to the retro-styled trail bridge over the creek, or a short distance just past it, and look through the trees and under the freeway bridges, and this probably works best when the trees are bare. If you want a closer look, there's a small parking area under the I-84 overpasses that I think is usually used for fishing access. I've never actually been over there, and I'm not about to make a special trip just for this one blog post, but it looks like the access road for this parking area turns off of Warrendale Road at the first right just off the westbound Warrendale exit.

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