File:Old Fort Wayne RR bridge.jpg

Bridge No. 1 on the Pittsburgh, Ft. Wayne and Chicago Railway, over the Allegheny river, consists of eleven spans of length and kind as follows:

On the Pittsburgh side are four deck plate girder spans of 40 feet each, built in 1864; five through riveted lattice truss spans of about 160 feet each, two spans built in 1865; two in 1866 and one in 1867; and two deck plate girders on the Allegheny side of about 84 feet, each built in 1867; making the total length of the iron work 1,172 feet.

The deck plate girders at the Pittsburgh end are placed in a fan shaped position in order to allow entrance into freight yard. The first through span has two parallel trusses for east track and one truss set at an angle to others to allow side tracks to run onto bridge, thus allowing use of extreme west of freight yard. This may be seen in end view quite plainly.

The trusses of this bridge are modifications of what are known as multiple intersection trusses. This modification consists in the use of fiat bars for all diagonals the compression being taken care of by vertical stiffeners placed about eight feet apart and made up of four angles.

The bridge carries two tracks and is 30 feet wide center to center of outside trusses. The depth of trusses is 18 feet 7⅝ inches.