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79-538: Work on a four-story Hotel Del Portal began in the fall of 1907 and completed in 1908 by a subsidiary corporation of the Yosemite Valley Railroad . It was located at El Portal, California in Mariposa County , 11.5 miles (19 km) west-southwest of Yosemite Village , at an elevation of 1,939 feet (591 m); on the western boundary of Yosemite National Park . The hotel was a four-hour ride from Merced via

158-436: A live load to dead load ratio of 2-to-1. If this ratio is 2-to-1 or greater, then a six-panel truss must have counter-braces and these must at least one-third as strong as the braces. The counter-braces in an eight-panel truss must be at least two-thirds as strong as the braces, and the counter-braces in a 10-panel truss must be at least equal in strength to the braces. If rapidly moving live loads of any ratio are expected on

237-612: A brace, connected from the top of the last vertical post to the end of the lower chord. Struts are used to connect the two parallels of the chords to prevent lateral bending and reduce vibration. Two diagonals, connecting to the top of the vertical posts, are used. One of the diagonals should be a single piece, while the other is framed into the first piece or made of two pieces connected to it. X-braces, usually made of slender metal rods with threaded ends, are installed between vertical posts to help reduce sway . Knee braces, usually flat bars with eyelets on either end, are used to connect

316-722: A bridge in the mid to late 1800s. The earliest bridges in North America were made of wood, which was abundant and cheaper than stone or masonry. Early wooden bridges were usually of the Towne lattice truss or Burr truss design. Some later bridges were McCallum trusses (a modification of the Burr truss). About 1840, iron rods were added to wooden bridges. The Pratt truss used wooden vertical members in compression with diagonal iron braces. The Howe truss used iron vertical rods in tension with wooden diagonal braces. Both trusses used counter-bracing, which

395-424: A bridge of six panels or less (about 75 feet (23 m) long) needs no counter-bracing. An eight-panel truss requires counter-braces in every panel but the end panels, and these should be at least one-fourth as strong as the braces. A 10-panel truss requires counter-braces in every panel but the end panels, and these should be at least one-half as strong as the braces. A Howe truss bridge can be strengthened to achieve

474-526: A button in the White House which set the power house machinery in motion. The Yosemite Valley Railroad experienced success with passenger revenue in its first 20 years, but the completion of a modern highway in 1926 and the increasing popularity of automobiles and buses caused a significant decline in revenue. At the same time, suspension of operations by the Yosemite Lumber Company in 1927 led to

553-531: A combination of wood and iron, or all iron. Whichever design is used, wooden timbers should have square ends without mortise and tenons . The design of an all-metal Howe truss follows that of the wooden truss. The parallels in each chord are usually built up out of smaller beams, each small beam fastened to one another to create a continuous beam. In wooden Howe trusses, these slender beams are usually no more than 10 to 15 inches (250 to 380 mm) wide and 6 to 8 inches (150 to 200 mm) deep. In iron trusses,

632-480: A fifty percent plunge in freight revenue. The stock market crash of 1929 and the depression worsened the situation, leading to the railroad's bankruptcy in 1935. To try and save the struggling company, the Yosemite Valley Railroad was publicly offered for sale as a "real railroad as a Christmas gift" for five million dollars in newspapers throughout California. The railroad was re-incorporated and showed

711-714: A fire destroyed the hotel including the Desmond Company's records. The fire was started by a defective attic flue . In April 1918, the new El Portal Inn replaced the Hotel Del Portal. The smaller and less elegant Inn was a two-story, twenty-room hotel. It was operated by the Yosemite Terminal Company, a subsidiary of the Yosemite Valley Railroad. On July 9, 1932, the El Portal Inn was burned down due to defective kitchen equipment. A new hotel, next to highway 140,

790-543: A history spanning nearly 60 years of activity, Number 21 is one locomotive that deserves special attention. Originally used for 25 years on the Wabash Railroad , it was later sold to the Yosemite Valley Railroad in 1906. Engineer Charlie Grant, who had a special attachment to Number 21, accompanied the locomotive to its new home on the Yosemite Valley Railroad, where he worked for 20 years before retiring with honors in 1926. Despite its age, Number 21 continued to operate until

869-416: A hole may be drilled in the lug and brace/counter-brace and a dowel inserted to hold the beam in place. Iron angle blocks should have a hole cast in the upper lugs so that a bolt may pass through the lug and brace/counter-brace, securing the braces in place. The lower lugs in an angle block also have holes cast in them, to permit the angle block to be bolted to the chord. Two or more holes are cast through

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948-407: A level of redundancy which allows it to withstand excessive loading (such as the loss of a panel due to collision). Prestressing is critical to the proper function of a Howe truss. During its initial construction, the diagonals are connected only loosely to the joints, and rely on prestressing, done at a later stage, to perform correctly. Moreover, diagonals in tension can only withstand stress below

1027-439: A margin of approximately 10,000 visitors. The Yosemite Valley Railroad had a particularly successful year, setting new records by carrying 2,000 people in a single day. The large number of Yosemite-bound specials, along with log trains running regularly to Merced Falls , allowed the railroad's payroll to grow to 350 employees. Despite significant fixed payments in 1923, 1925, and 1926, the railroad generated enough revenue to report

1106-642: A net profit. In 1925, passenger travel reached an all-time high, with over 85,000 people paying to ride the railway. To keep up with the growing popularity of private automobiles, the YVRR started offering auto ferrying services, building special platforms at Merced and El Portal to load cars for the trip to the Valley and back. This service proved especially popular with wealthy passengers and even attracted Hollywood movie stars, such as Buster Keaton , Fatty Arbuckle , Mae West , Mary Pickford , and Doug Fairbanks . In 1922,

1185-424: A parallel in a chord are separated along their long side by a space equal to the diameter of the vertical posts, usually about 1 inch (25 mm). This allows the vertical posts to pass through the parallel in the chord. Batten plates are placed diagonally between the members of a chord, and nailed in place to reduce bending and to act as a shim to provide ventilation between chord members. The middle third of

1264-633: A railway coach. On October 1, 1917, the Desmond Park Service moved to the Hotel Del Portal during the winter. The hotel was owned by the Yosemite Valley Railroad company, but the Desmond Company leased and operated it and the automobile stage line between El Portal and Yosemite Valley. The Desmond Park Service Company changed its name to the Yosemite National Park Company in December 1917 and was reorganized in 1920. On October 27, 1917,

1343-491: A second Howe truss design in 1846. The Howe truss bridge consists of an upper and lower "chord", each chord consisting of two parallel beams and each chord parallel to one another. The web consists of verticals, braces, and counter-braces. Vertical posts connect the upper and lower chords to one another, and create "panels". A diagonal brace in each panel strengthens the bridge, and a diagonal counter-brace in each panel enhances this strength. Howe truss bridges may be all wood,

1422-399: A sloping firebox. The first three engines were purchased secondhand and used in construction and regular service. The remaining seven locomotives were new from either Alco or Baldwin and remained in service until the railroad ceased operations. All engines initially had wooden cabs, but most were replaced with steel cabs, except for Numbers 11 and 20, which were sold before 1925. With

1501-542: A small gross profit between 1935 and 1937, thanks to increased freight traffic due to the reopening of the lumber mill. However, the railroad experienced unexpected events such as a flood that wiped out 30 miles of track along the Merced River. A fire in Merced destroyed the tool shed and several passenger cars. These events caused significant damage and financial setbacks. To recover, the railroad required rehabilitation loans from

1580-511: A surge in iron bridge building occurred throughout the United States. The most commonly used designs were the Howe truss, Pratt truss, Bollman truss , Fink truss , and Warren truss . The Howe and Pratt trusses found favor because they used far fewer members. The 1962 built, World's Longest, Single Span, Wooden Covered Bridge at Bridgeport State Park, California, uses a Burr-Arch in combination with

1659-420: A total of 65 smaller bridges and trestles along the route. The completed route had 63.5 miles of grades and 32.9 miles of curves with a maximum grade of 1-2%. The main line had Bessemer rail weighing 70 pounds to the yard, and there were 505 curves, as well as 10,265 miles of yards and sidings. A telephone and telegraph line was constructed along the route and completed on July 1, 1907, connecting Yosemite with

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1738-495: Is avoided in order to avoid buckling. In practice, most wood stringers are 16 inches (410 mm) in width due to limitations in milling. There are usually six stringers in a bridge. Building the deck for a railroad bridge requires that a stringer lie directly beneath each rail, and that a stringer support each end of the railroad ties . Ties are usually 6 by 8 inches (150 by 200 mm) in cross-section, and 9 to 12 feet (2.7 to 3.7 m) in length. They are set directly on top of

1817-407: Is used to secure the vertical post to the chord. Special plates or washers of wood or metal are used to help distribute the stress induced by the vertical post onto the chords. Vertical posts are in tension, which is induced by tightening the nuts on the vertical bars. Braces are diagonal beams which connect the bottom of a vertical post to the top of the next vertical post. They are placed in

1896-536: The Merced Irrigation District made the decision to construct the Exchequer Dam on the Merced River. This required the relocation of 16.7 miles of the main rail route, from Merced Falls nearly to Bagby Station . The relocation involved erecting five steel bridges and two trestles, with the 1600 Barrett Bridge spanning the reservoir. The relocation was much more costly than originally estimated, due to

1975-549: The Yosemite All-Year Highway and the decreased recreational passenger traffic due to World War II had all but eliminated demand for rail passenger service. The YVRR also transported log cars for the Yosemite Lumber Company and limestone for the Yosemite Portland Cement Company as a freight carrier. The closure of these businesses in the early 1940s played a role in the railroad's decline, with

2054-462: The 1930s before being put on standby service, making it one of the most enduring classic 4-4-0 locomotives in American railroading history. Howe truss A Howe truss is a truss bridge consisting of chords, verticals, and diagonals whose vertical members are in tension and whose diagonal members are in compression. The Howe truss was invented by William Howe in 1840, and was widely used as

2133-578: The Howe truss to be the best form of wooden truss bridge, and believed it to be the most commonly used truss bridge in the United States at that time. All-iron Howe trusses began to be built about 1845. Examples include a 50-foot (15 m) long iron Howe truss was built for the Boston and Providence Railroad and a 30-foot (9.1 m) long railroad bridge over the Ohio and Erie Canal in Cleveland. Iron, however,

2212-419: The Howe truss, the counter-braces used in the center panel should be equal in strength to the braces, and the panel next to the end panel should have counter-braces at least one-half as strong as the braces. Where diagonal braces and counter-braces meet, they are usually bolted together. Braces and counter-braces are held in place with angle blocks. Angle blocks are triangular in cross-section and should be

2291-495: The Howe-Truss to achieve this over 210' span. The only maintenance a Howe truss requires is adjustment of the nuts on the vertical posts to equalize strain. The diagonals in a wooden Pratt truss proved difficult to keep in proper adjustment, so the Howe truss became the preferred design for a wooden bridge or for a "transitional" bridge of wood with iron verticals. Engineering professor Horace R. Thayer, writing in 1913, considered

2370-780: The Pratt and Howe trusses spurred Benjamin Henry Latrobe II , chief engineer of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad , to build large numbers of iron bridges. After two famous iron bridge collapses (one in the United States, the other in the United Kingdom ), few of these were built in the North . This meant most iron bridges erected prior to the American Civil War were located in the South . About 1867,

2449-851: The Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe to get the line back into operation. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt brought excitement to the Yosemite Valley Railroad by riding it and touring the Yosemite Valley, which included a lunch stop at Mariposa Big Trees Grove . The railroad picked up the President's party from the Southern Pacific in Merced and pulled the ten cars, including the President's private car, to El Portal using three freshly-painted, decorated locomotives. By evening, Roosevelt and his entourage were on their way back to Merced. In 1939,

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2528-540: The Yosemite Valley Railroad earned the nickname as the "Grand Central of the West", attracting tourists from all over the world to Yosemite National Park. Despite growing competition from buses and automobiles, the railroad continued to draw in visitors, including world leaders like Prince Axel of Denmark and King Albert of Belgium who traveled in private rail cars. In 1921, Yosemite claimed first place in attendance among national parks, surpassing Yellowstone National Park by

2607-416: The Yosemite Valley Railroad experienced a doubling of passenger travel as the country began to recover from the depression. Despite running 79 special trains and nearly reaching $ 100,000 in gross profit, the amount was not enough to cover fixed costs. The trustees recognized the need for a refinancing plan, but the sale of the lumber company's timber rights to the government ended any hope of that. Consequently,

2686-406: The Yosemite Valley Railroad required a significant investment of capital and presented many engineering challenges. The Yosemite Valley Railroad ran from Merced, California to El Portal, which is the western boundary of Yosemite National Park. The route began in the city of Merced, where connections were made with the Southern Pacific and Santa Fe railways, and extended 78 miles to El Portal. Running

2765-634: The Yosemite run. The railroad's headquarters were in the new Merced depot, which had a roundhouse in use and a small station at El Portal. The four-story Hotel Del Portal at the eastern terminus attracted celebrities and politicians, including Senator Benjamin Tillman , Governor James Gillet , William Randolph Hearst , J.B. Duke , and John Muir . The Yosemite Valley Railroad management improved operations and added new locomotives, passenger-express mail cars, and leased passenger cars. More than 50 people were making

2844-521: The alongside the Merced River, this was the only feasible route for summer and winter travel to Yosemite Valley. Though several companies had shown interest in constructing a rail line, it was a group of Oakland and San Francisco financiers who obtained the right-of-way for the most feasible route. The Yosemite Valley Railroad hired Nathaniel C. Ray in 1902 as the chief engineer to build the railway, which required political knowledge as well as engineering talent. The northern boundary of Yosemite National Park

2923-412: The angle block. The upper lug may be a single flange that fits into a groove cut into the surface of the diagonal, or there may be two to four lugs which form an opening into which the brace and counter-brace are seated. The diagonals are kept in place by tightening the nuts on the vertical posts. Cleats can be nailed to a wooden angle block to help keep braces and counter-braces seated. Alternatively,

3002-401: The beams of the upper chord to one another. In the lower chord of a wooden bridge, clamps are used to couple beams together. Although generally of the same length, beams are positioned so that a splice (the point where the end of two beams meet) is near the point where two panels meet but not adjacent to the splice in an adjacent pair of beams. The individual small beams which make up

3081-423: The center of the angle block, to allow the vertical posts to pass through and be anchored on the other side of the chord. End panels are the four panels on either side of the end of a Howe truss bridge. These should be the same height as the chords, but not more. The upper chord does not extend past the portal (the space formed by the last four vertical posts at either end of the bridge). The end panels need only

3160-509: The construction site, and sometimes even entire trusses could be manufactured and assembled off-site and transported by rail to the intended location. Some sort of falsework , usually in the form of a trestle , is required to erect the bridge. The development of the Pratt and Howe trusses spurred the construction of iron bridges in the United States. Until 1850, few iron bridges in the country were longer than 50 feet (15 m). The simple design, ease of manufacture, and ease of construction of

3239-425: The end of the bridge suffer the highest amount of stress. The stress affecting counter-braces depends on the ratio of live load to dead load per unit of length, and how the live load is distributed across the bridge. A uniform distribution of live load will put no stress on the counter-braces, while putting live load on only a portion of the bridge will create maximum stress on the center counter-braces. Because of

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3318-408: The exact three-year anniversary of the railroad's incorporation. The company was complying with its state charter, which required five miles of the railroad to be in regular operation within three years of the charter's granting. Tracks were completed to Merced Falls on March 4, 1906, and the formal opening of the railroad's regular schedule took place on May 25, 1906. Regular service marked the end of

3397-506: The few surviving pieces of rolling stock, is also on display. Locomotive 29, which was sold to a Mexican railroad after the Yosemite Valley Railroad's closure, is currently on static display in Veracruz, Mexico. The film Color of a Brisk and Leaping Day is based on the Yosemite Valley Railroad and 23-year old John McFadden's failed attempt to save it. The locations team revived the railroad on screen despite its 50-year dismantlement. The film

3476-510: The first year of operation, the number of recreation visits to Yosemite National Park increased by 30% to 7,102. By 1915, the annual number of recreation visits surpassed 30,000. The Yosemite Valley Railroad experienced a successful beginning, with its business picking up just two months after its first run. It signed mail and express contracts, and its freight revenue from mines and quarries began to increase. The Southern Pacific gave up on its competing route and began advertising connections with

3555-483: The heaviest traveled routes by 1910. The railroad partnered with the Selig Polyscope Company to produce a travelog about the Yosemite run that was shown all over the world. In 1910, the Yosemite Lumber Company was established, and the railroad played a crucial role in transporting the logs from the mountains to the sawmill at Merced Falls . Special standard gauge flat cars with bulkheads were necessary for

3634-477: The hiring process with an arbitrary sign that read, "Bus leaves for camp each morning at 7 AM. Everybody can have a job. Don't ask questions!" The workforce grew to about 1500 men in January 1906, but turnover was high due to the nature of the job. The Yosemite Valley Railroad's first regularly scheduled train left from the Santa Fe depot, which was located six miles outside of town, on December 18, 1905. This marked

3713-606: The last regularly scheduled train running on August 24, 1945. Some structures and rolling stock of the YVRR are on display in El Portal , but little else remains of the railroad. Among many notable passengers, the YVRR carried two presidents: William Howard Taft in October, 1909 and Franklin Roosevelt on July 15, 1938. The Yosemite Valley Railroad's construction marked a transformative moment for travel to Yosemite. Prior to its inception,

3792-403: The last strut and last vertical posts on both ends of the bridge. Individual panels may be prefabricated off-site. When panels are connected to one another on-site, shims are used to pack any spaces and bolted in place. Floor beams extend between the parallels of a chord and are used to support the stringers and decking. Floor beams may sit atop the chord below them, or they may be hung from

3871-425: The lower chord is always reinforced by one or more beams bolted to the chord. This reinforcement is generally one-sixth the width of the cross-section of the lower chord. If a wood chord needs to be strengthened even more, additional slender beams may be bolted to the middle third of the each side of the lower chord. When construction is complete, the upper chord of a Howe truss bridge will be in compression , while

3950-414: The lower chord is in tension . Vertical posts connect the upper and lower chords, and divide the truss into panels. The Howe truss usually uses iron or steel verticals. These are straight and round, slightly reduced in circumference at the ends, and a screw thread added. The vertical usually passes through the center of the angle block and then through space left in the upper and lower chord. A nut

4029-424: The only means of transportation was a two-day stagecoach journey that was uncomfortable and dangerous due to the risk of stagecoach robbery. The Southern Pacific's famous "Cannon-ball" stage from Raymond to Yosemite Valley was a marginally faster option, taking between twelve and fourteen hours to complete the trip. However, these trips were unaffordable for most, reserved only for the wealthy. The construction of

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4108-501: The outside world. On May 15, 1907, the Yosemite Valley Railroad's first scheduled full-length run departed from Merced for El Portal, which was 80 miles away and had 12 passengers on board. Through connections in Merced, tourists could reach Yosemite by train in less than a day's journey from San Francisco (9 hours) and Los Angeles (16 hours). The train schedule allowed passengers to leave Merced at 2 p.m. and arrive at El Portal at 6 p.m. Passengers would have dinner and stay overnight at

4187-471: The park boundary in El Portal, California and stay overnight at the Hotel Del Portal before taking a stagecoach to Yosemite Valley. The YVRR replaced the stagecoach routes that had dominated travel and tourism in the area since the mid-1870s. However, by the 1920s, the increasing popularity of automobiles had started to overtake the railroad in terms of tourist volume. By the 1940s, the completion of

4266-426: The park, allowing the concessionaire to expand its offerings, including the luxurious Glacier Point Hotel built in 1917. This period was not without its setbacks. A disastrous fire on October 27, 1917, destroyed the Hotel Del Portal , causing an estimated loss of $ 100,000. The El Portal Inn, operated by a subsidiary of YVRR, replaced the Hotel Del Portal by the start of the next tourist season. After World War I,

4345-424: The prestressing level. (The size of the member does not matter due to the loose fitting of the diagonal to the joint.) Proper prestressing during construction is therefore critical in the correct performance of the bridge. Maximum stress is placed on the center of the chords when a live load reaches the center of the bridge, or when the live load extends the length of the bridge. Both the vertical posts and braces at

4424-425: The railroad built a stagecoach road that ran the six miles from El Portal into Yosemite Valley at a cost of $ 73,260. The entire roadbed for the Yosemite Valley Railroad was blasted out of solid rock, which required approximately 3,000,000 pounds of dynamite and powder and 285 miles of fuse. Three Howe truss bridges were built to cross the canyon's steep walls, located at Hopeton , Pleasant Valley, and Bagby , with

4503-640: The railroad requested permission to abandon operations from the Interstate Commerce Commission on October 25, 1944. Due to decreased revenue, the railroad reduced its staff and service in 1944, and the last run of the Yosemite Valley Railway took place in 1945. The railroad was dismantled by the end of 1946, with most of the locomotives and equipment scrapped or sold. Today, the Yosemite Valley Railroad no longer exists, but some remnants can still be found. The El Portal Inn, which served as

4582-475: The railroad's terminus, burned down in 1932. Some sections of the re-routed railbed were submerged when Exchequer Dam was expanded in the 1960s. However, a few of the railroad's tunnels still remain under Lake McClure and in Merced Canyon. The National Park Service relocated several surviving structures, such as the original hand-turned turntable, from Bagby to El Portal . At El Portal, Caboose No. 15, one of

4661-460: The railroad, the company purchased two locomotives from the Northern Pacific, a steam shovel, and a small narrow gauge work engine. During construction the company faced a shortage of labor, prompting them to advertise for 1000 workers at wages of $ 2.25 per day. The recruitment effort caused overcrowding in hotels and long lines at the employment office in Merced, prompting the company to expedite

4740-442: The same height and width as the parallel of the chord. Angle blocks may be made of wood or iron, although iron is usually used for permanent structures. Angle blocks are attached upside down to the upper chord, and right side up to the lower chord. Angle blocks have lugs— flanges or projections used for carrying, seating, or supporting something. The ends of the braces and counter-braces should cut or cast to rest squarely against

4819-469: The same plane as the chord. Unlike iron or steel braces which are built up, wooden braces are cut to length. Where the parallel in a chord has a thickness of X number of beams, each brace should have a thickness of X minus 1 beams. The depth-to-width ratio of each member of a diagonal brace should be no greater than that of the brace as a whole. Braces may be a single piece, or several pieces spliced together with fishplate. Braces are in compression due to

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4898-438: The stagecoach business along the route. Construction to El Portal ran through rough foothill and mountain country, and supplies and equipment were transported by pack horses, ropes, sleds, two-wheeled horse carts, wheelbarrows, and drags for grading. By May 1907, the rails had almost reached the boundary of Yosemite National Park, but the government refused to give up more right-of-way for the train to enter Yosemite Valley. Thus,

4977-430: The steep grades of the incline. The log cars ran from the woods down the incline and on the main line to the mill without reloading, saving labor costs. The lumbering venture doubled the railroad's freight income from $ 64,000 to $ 128,000. In November 1913, the first automobile stage replaced the horse-drawn stages for the 14-mile route from El Portal to Yosemite Valley. The 25-passenger White Motor Company buses completed

5056-487: The stress placed on the bridge, the Howe truss is suitable for spans 150 feet (46 m) in length or less. No provision is made in a Howe truss for expansion or contraction due to changes in temperature. The Howe truss was highly economical due to its ease of construction. The wooden pieces can be designed using little but a steel square and scratch awl , and the truss can be framed using only an adze , auger , and saw . Panels could be prefabricated and transported to

5135-404: The stringers, about 12 inches (300 mm) apart. Guard rails 6 by 8 inches (150 by 200 mm) in cross-section are set 20 inches (510 mm) from the center of the ties, and bolted to every third tie. The inner truss of a Howe truss is statically indeterminate . There are two paths for stress during loading, a pair of diagonals in compression and a pair in tension. This gives the Howe truss

5214-518: The tent hotel in El Portal before leaving for the Valley after breakfast the next morning, arriving at the Sentinel Hotel in the Valley before lunchtime. On their return, passengers would return in the afternoon, arrive at El Portal in time for dinner, stay overnight, and have breakfast before departing for Merced to catch the north and southbound trains on both Santa Fe and Southern Pacific. In 1907,

5293-415: The tightening of the nuts on the verticals. Counter-braces are diagonal beams which connect the bottom of a vertical post to the top of the next vertical post, and run roughly perpendicular to braces. They are placed in the same plane as the chord, are generally uniform in size, and should have a thickness one beam less than a brace. Unlike braces, counter-braces are a single piece. Generally speaking,

5372-504: The trip daily. In December 1907, the railroad added its first winter excursion, allowing visitors to easily access the park year-round for the first time. This was decades before the All-Year Highway was opened to automobile traffic in the 1940s. The railroad carried 23,089 passengers, showing a book profit of $ 73,000 in its first year of operation. In 1909, the Yosemite Valley Railroad established Pullman service, which became one of

5451-595: The trip in one hour and thirty-five minutes, compared to the four-hour journey required by the old horse stages. By 1915, passenger and freight revenue continued to increase, and eighty percent of the passengers during the summer season were tourists from the Eastern United States. In 1916, the Yosemite Valley Railroad leased the Hotel Del Portal and the stage line to the Desmond Park Service Company. The new railroad brought increased visitation to

5530-400: The unstable rock conditions in the area. The four tunnels on the new line required timbering for nearly their entire length, and the bridge abutments used significantly more concrete than initially calculated. On April 18, 1926, the new line saw its first scheduled passenger train. A grand ceremony was held on June 23, 1926, to dedicate the dam itself. At 11 o'clock, President Coolidge pressed

5609-503: The upper chord beams are the same length as the panel. Upper chord beams are usually made of cast iron , while the lower chord beams are of wrought iron . A minimum of three small beams are used, each uniform in width and depth. Fishplates are usually used to splice beams together. (Lower chord beams may have eyes on each end, in which case they are fastened together with bolts, pins , or rivets .) In wooden trusses, cotters and iron bolts are used every 4 feet (1.2 m) to connect

5688-449: The vertical posts. Floor beams generally have the greatest depth of any beam in the bridge. Floor beams are usually placed where two panels meet. If they are placed somewhere mid-panel, the chord must be reinforced to resist bending , buckling , and shear stress . Stringers are beams set on top of the floor beams, parallel to the chords. A stringer may have a depth-to-width ratio anywhere from 2-to-1 to 6-to-1. A ratio greater than 6-to-1

5767-464: Was 180 feet (55 m) in length. Both bridges were erected in 1840. One of Howe's workmen, Amasa Stone , purchased for $ 40,000 ($ 1,220,800 in 2023 dollars) in 1842 the rights to Howe's patented bridge design. With his financial backer, Azariah Boody, Stone formed the bridge-building firm of Boody, Stone & Co., which erected a large number of Howe truss bridges throughout New England . Howe made additional improvements to his bridge, and patented

5846-757: Was a construction contractor in Massachusetts when he patented the Howe truss design in 1840. That same year, he established the Howe Bridge Works to build bridges using his design. The first Howe truss ever built was a single-lane, 75-foot (23 m) long bridge in Connecticut carrying a road. The second was a railroad bridge over the Connecticut River in Springfield, Massachusetts . This bridge, which drew extensive praise and attention, had seven spans and

5925-419: Was becoming essential now that heavy railroad trains were using bridges. In 1830, Stephen Harriman Long received a patent for an all-wood parallel chord truss bridge. Long's bridge contained diagonal braces which were prestressed with wedges. The Long truss did not require a connection between the diagonal and the truss, and was able to remain in compression even when the wood shrank somewhat. William Howe

6004-606: Was built by December 1932. Yosemite Valley Railroad The Yosemite Valley Railroad (YVRR) was a short-line railroad that operated in California from 1907 to 1945, providing a new mode of travel and tourism for the region. It ran from Merced to the Yosemite National Park , but it did not extend to Yosemite Valley itself, as railroad construction was prohibited in the National Parks . Tourists would disembark at

6083-439: Was further north than it is today, and Congress prohibited railroads from entering any national park. After several attempts to change the boundary, a bill was passed in 1905 that transferred certain lands from the park to the forest reserve, allowing the Yosemite Valley Railroad to obtain a permit to operate in the reserve in 1907. Tracklaying began on November 1, 1905, with the arrival of the first 10 carloads of rail. To equip

6162-530: Was praised by the New York Times for its ability to capture natural beauty and evoke a vivid American past. It won the Cinematography Award at the 1996 Sundance Film Festival . The Yosemite Valley Railroad used standardized motive power for its 38 years of operation. Its ten locomotives were all oil-burning, steam-powered Americans or Moguls , except for Number 11, which was an unusual 2-8-0 with

6241-608: Was the preferred bridge for automobile and railroads, and the Howe truss did not adapt well to all-iron construction. The Pratt truss' single diagonal bracing system meant less cost, and its ability to use wrought-iron stringers under railroad rails and ties, led bridge builders to favor the Pratt over the Howe. Heavier live loads, particularly by railroads, led bridge builders to favor plate girder and Towne lattice bridges for spans less than 60 feet (18 m), and Warren girder bridges for all other spans. Trusses have been widely used in architecture since ancient times. The Howe truss

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