Moving a UP/SP Lift Bridge from Houma, LA to Freeport, TX

(Houma Bridge Hunter, Freeport Swing Bridge Hunter, Freeport Lift Bridge Hunter, no Historic Bridges, see below for various satellite images)

Houma, LA was at the end of a 15-mile branch from the Southern Pacific mainline. "Built in 1982 to replace an earlier swing bridge. Abandoned in 1991 and moved to Freeport, TX in 2010" [Houma BH]

(new window) (source) This video uses the modern production style of a bunch of different people saying fluff pieces (of the nature "It was a challenge; but we did it on schedule, within the budget, and with no injuries. I'm proud of the teamwork.") At least during some of the fluff narration, this video shows some interesting images. But some of the video is "talking heads," which drives me nuts watching a person espouse platitudes. It makes me appreciate the 1940s style of a narration by a professional voice explaining what you are looking at.


If I set Google Earth for Jan, 2011 (see below), they catch the span being gone and barges working on dismantling the towers. (I discovered Google Earth allows you to save the viewed image as a file with some high resolution options. But the highest resolution file (4800x2827) just used a lot of disk space to store what was effectively screen resolution. That is, it pixilated real bad when I tried zooming in on the saved image. And I could not find how to get a URL that would reproduce what I was looking at like you can with Google Map or Bing.)

Google Earth Jan 2001, 29°34'53.56" N  90°43'00.86" W

This is an image from when it was still standing.

Google Earth March 2010

The move was done long enough ago that it is in the Freeport, TX image.

3D Satellite

The normal reason for replacing a swing bridge with a lift bridge is to more than double the width of the shipping channel. But upstream from this bridge they have this very narrow passage. I panned between the images so that the image below is at the same scale as the lift-bridge image above. In this case, the swing bridge was replaced because it was worn out.

3D Satellite

Google Earth March 2010, 28°57'16.49" N  95°21'14.83" W

Photo by Jann Mayer in June 2009, License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)
Looking east at its original location in Houma, LA

Flickr Photo by Patrick Feller, License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)
Through Truss Swing Railroad Bridge over Old Brazos River, Freeport, Texas
Keith: "Before the Velasco Boulevard Bridge was built, vehicular traffic and railroad traffic shared this bridge. "

Flickr Photo by Patrick Feller, License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)
Through Truss Swing Railroad Bridge over Old Brazos River, Freeport, Texas

Flickr Photo by Patrick Feller, License: Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY)
"New" Lift Truss Railroad Bridge over Old Brazos River, Freeport, Texas
This bridge previously spanned the Intracoastal Waterway at Houma, Louisiana: www.houmatoday.com/article/20101119/articles/101119155