Morrin Bridge

It’s approaching the end of its service life. Down in the Red Deer River Valley near Morrin Alberta, the scenic badlands a backdrop, it’s the Morrin Bridge along Highway #27, due for replacement soon with work already begun. So before being sent to the scrap yard a quick look at the structure in all its magnificence, steel and rivets, rust and peeling paint, grime and pitted concrete. And all those memories of the thousands and thousands of people who’ve passed over it in the many decades it was here. We’re not sure if we’ll cross it again before it’s gone, so here’s our memorial.

The structure dates from the late 1950s and has two truss spans (polygonal Warren design) and two shorter open deck spans, all interconnected and supported by three concrete piers. Being a through truss design, so with steel girders overhead, clearances are restricted and that’s been a problem for larger loads (like farming equipment) with a time consuming reroute being the norm for them. Manufactured at Dominion Bridge in Calgary, this firm, once a huge player in the business and fabricator of all manner of general steel work, is but now just a memory. The old factory is still there in the Ramsay neighbourhood. See: Calgary Then and Now – Dominion Bridge and Riverside Iron Works.

Prior to the bridge, a river ferry going back to the 1910s in one form or another, operated very near this spot. The road down into the valley on each side is a steep and winding affair, and come winter, the trip can be quite “exhilarating” should there be icy conditions (which it seems there often is).

The new bridge is expected to be completed in 2020. It’ll be a pretty mundane open deck design with no clearance issues, functional but lacking character I suppose.

Bridges are a thing…
Canmore Engine Bridge.
Bridge Hunting – Waneta British Columbia.
Bridge Hunting – Bullpound Alberta.

Short Subjects: reports that for any number of reasons are brief in nature. They might be updates to older articles, previews of posts planned or not yet published, brief snippets of things that don’t fit in anywhere else or subjects that are so obscure that information on them can’t be found. Or sometimes we just ramble on about Lord knows what.

If you need any more information on what we talked about here, by all means contact us!

Date of adventure: April, 2018.
Location: Near Morrin AB.

Near Morrin Alberta, this old bridge.

It dates back to the late 1950s…

…And is soon to be replaced.

Over the Red Deer River in the badlands.