Crossing the Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River, Hardeman County, Texas
This is the old wood /steel bridge that runs Hollis Road (Texas),(county road 1680 in Oklahoma), across the Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River into Oklahoma. We were exploring Hardeman County and had seen this old bridge on Google Earth and figured we'd stop to grab some photos. I didn't drive out onto it but did walk over to the Oklahoma side to get some photos of the river, showing how low the water gets. While shooting some pics I felt the bridge tremble a bit and heard my sister shout something that I couldn't quite hear. She was taking photos about 100 yards closer to the Texas side from where I was. A truck towing a trailer loaded with hay was creeping toward me heading into Oklahoma. I took a few photos after it had passed, getting the low water level shot I wanted, combined with the truck slowly crawling along in the distance. After grabbing a few shots of a bullet hole perforated bridge load limit sign, we were once again on the road and heading back to Newcastle for the night. The next day I was going through the previous day's photos and noticed the load limit sign mentioned a bridge weight limit of 3 tons. Searching on-line I found some information that revealed how much overweight the truck and hay trailer were... if the three ton weight limit sign could be believed. The truck was a Ford 350 dually towing a flatbed trailer carrying 12 4x4 round hay bales. Depending upon the moisture content of the hay, the bales probably weighed around 600 pounds each, for a total load weight of 7,200 pounds... 3.6 tons. The F350 dually weighs, at the least 7,500 pounds... 3.75 tons. This makes a total combined load of 7.35 tons creeping across the bridge that day... not counting the weight of the flatbed trailer. The driver had probably done this many times before and trusted the bridge to carry the weight, but he must have been aware that something could go wrong leaving him, his rig, and a section of the bridge in the river. About 6 years after this photo was taken the old bridge was replaced by much more robust concrete structure. Google Earth shows the new bridge to be flat concrete... not as classy as the old wood / steel Pony Truss bridge that it replaced.
20110507-52
Crossing the Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River, Hardeman County, Texas
This is the old wood /steel bridge that runs Hollis Road (Texas),(county road 1680 in Oklahoma), across the Prairie Dog Town Fork Red River into Oklahoma. We were exploring Hardeman County and had seen this old bridge on Google Earth and figured we'd stop to grab some photos. I didn't drive out onto it but did walk over to the Oklahoma side to get some photos of the river, showing how low the water gets. While shooting some pics I felt the bridge tremble a bit and heard my sister shout something that I couldn't quite hear. She was taking photos about 100 yards closer to the Texas side from where I was. A truck towing a trailer loaded with hay was creeping toward me heading into Oklahoma. I took a few photos after it had passed, getting the low water level shot I wanted, combined with the truck slowly crawling along in the distance. After grabbing a few shots of a bullet hole perforated bridge load limit sign, we were once again on the road and heading back to Newcastle for the night. The next day I was going through the previous day's photos and noticed the load limit sign mentioned a bridge weight limit of 3 tons. Searching on-line I found some information that revealed how much overweight the truck and hay trailer were... if the three ton weight limit sign could be believed. The truck was a Ford 350 dually towing a flatbed trailer carrying 12 4x4 round hay bales. Depending upon the moisture content of the hay, the bales probably weighed around 600 pounds each, for a total load weight of 7,200 pounds... 3.6 tons. The F350 dually weighs, at the least 7,500 pounds... 3.75 tons. This makes a total combined load of 7.35 tons creeping across the bridge that day... not counting the weight of the flatbed trailer. The driver had probably done this many times before and trusted the bridge to carry the weight, but he must have been aware that something could go wrong leaving him, his rig, and a section of the bridge in the river. About 6 years after this photo was taken the old bridge was replaced by much more robust concrete structure. Google Earth shows the new bridge to be flat concrete... not as classy as the old wood / steel Pony Truss bridge that it replaced.
20110507-52