Early 20th Century Rivets

This bit of overlapping steel at a seldom used railroad trestle spanning an abandoned canal caught my eye this morning. The trestle was built between 1900 and 1910 and numerous coats of paint have come and gone during the past century.

Tom Robbins said:

This bit of overlapping steel at a seldom used railroad trestle spanning an abandoned canal caught my eye this morning. The trestle was built between 1900 and 1910 and numerous coats of paint have come and gone during the past century.

Click to expand...

Tom,

You notice details in what happens to structural things over time. The dried out layers of paint are interesting. Have you experimented adding such a great texture formation on to a photograph of a face or vase? I save such textures just for such use ... one day!

Surprisingly, rust can be a slow process and old abandoned bridges don't seem to fall down as fast as they should, while new bridges might not even make it through the first big earthquake, at least around here in California!

I'm more and more impressed with the artisans of old. Perhaps, not having the benefit of structural analysis and computer simulations, they simply built things stronger in the first place!

Asher

Asher, I suspect you're right about older structures being over built. An engineer, facing uncertainty, would likely prefer to err on the safe side.

Tom and Asher, I saw a fascinating BBC documentary on rebuilding the Titanic bow. Two teams, one of modern shipbuilders and second with scientists had a contest in hammering the rivets. During the day they managed to complete some 50 - 60 rivets! And that was a ridiculously small portion of the bow. Imagine the labour that went into building an entire ship/bridge/skyscraper!
Tom, it's a nice picture. I too am fascinated by old structures and the impact age has in things.

Jarmo, thank you for looking and also for your comments. The old stuff in our environment will eventually rot away or be removed, so postponing an opportunity for another day risks losing the subject forever.

Here's the old trestle in its entirety, photographed a couple months ago -