Talk:Bollman Truss Railroad Bridge

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[edit] Article name

I found several variations for the name of this bridge. I ended up using the one in the National Historic Landmark program -- "Bollman Truss Railroad Bridge". I made redirects of the others. — Eoghanacht ^talk 02:50, 1 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suspension bridge

Occasionally this bridge is referenced as being a suspension bridge as well as a truss, but not consistently. The bridge is always refered to as a truss, however. It has been too long since I took my static structures classes to confirm if it should be classified as just a truss or a combination suspension system. So I just removed the reference to the suspension bridge from the main article as being unverified. — Eoghanacht ^talk 14:27, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

It's definitely a truss bridge, though this is not as obvious for the deck version. The key is the presence of the compression members; it's composed of the same sort of force triangles as other truss systems, and the through version clearly relies on the upper chord of the bridge to keep the pylons apart. A true suspension bridge relies on symmetry of forces to eliminate the tortional forces on the pylons.

Bollman's patent drawing is a bit confusing because it doesn't show any members across the bottom. If I recall correctly, actual examples did include those members (providing stiffening). In any case the compressional elements of the deck are crucial in the deck version. Mangoe 18:05, 30 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reconcile (type vs. example)

This article should be about the truss it's titled for, not about any specific example. From the Truss bridge article, there are at least two of these truss bridges still around, and there may be more. I suggest that a partisan of the Savage, Maryland bridge create a separate article for it, and point to it as an example of such a bridge here, or make the references to that bridge be a subset of this article instead of the whole thing. Meanwhile, this article should be revised to explain what this truss is. - Denimadept 20:44, 17 October 2007 (UTC)

The historical markers near the bridge, and the American Society of Civil Engineers states it is the only surviving Bollman Truss bridge. The only other Bollman-designed bridge I know of (Wells Creek Bollman Bridge) is a Warren Truss system. Where is the other Bollman Truss bridge? — Eoghanacht ^talk 16:50, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Truss_bridge#Bollman_truss says the other is located in Meyersdale, Pennsylvania. - Denimadept (talk) 17:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The Meyersdale bridge is the Warren-type bridge that used to span Wells Creek. It would be wonderful if there were more Bollman-truss bridges around, but that does not appear to be the case. — Eoghanacht ^talk 18:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I still say that the article should refer to an example, even if it may be the only remaining one, as an example, and not be only about the one bridge. The article is supposed to be about a bridge type. If it's about a particular bridge, it should have the bridge infobox and be treated as a specific bridge. - Denimadept (talk) 21:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

To expand on that, this article should explain what a Bollman truss is, not talk about what a particular instance of it is. - Denimadept (talk) 21:02, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I would normally agree that a type should have a separate article from an example -- but given that there is only one example, it seems hard to justify two articles (IMHO). An analogy would be if there were a famous ancient Japanese sword that were also the only surviving example of its type, would the sword and the type each have an article? If you think there is a better way to format this article, or to illustrate the type (maybe with a structural diagram?) then go ahead and Be BOLD! Another alternative to two articles is to beef up the Bollman section in the truss bridge article to better explain the structural type.— Eoghanacht ^talk 14:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

If we knew more about the structural type, I think that'd be best. Then we could revamp the separate article to be just about the specific bridge and point to it from the truss bridge article. - Denimadept (talk) 14:26, 27 November 2007 (UTC)