The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1917-07-27
VICIOUS, ROARING
TORCHES CUT OFF
BRIDGE DEBRIS
Old Steel From Main Street
Structure Rapidly Turned
Into Junk.
BY ROSCOE FLEMING

A tangled mass of rusty, twisted
iron beams, lying in and across White.
water, waiting for the oxy-cetylene
torch that will convert them into junk,
and forlorn-looking remnant OF the
eastern end sticking out into empty
space for hundred feet or SO, are all
that remain of the old iron Main Street
bridge that has been the chief connect
ing link between Richmond and the
West Side for twenty years.
The new concrete bridge is going up
in the ruins Of the old The builders
are working from west to east, and
already one of the minor piers at the
western end Is complete, up under the
massive stone foundation OF the old
bridge. Another is halfway up, and
it's form is built up to the full height.
Great Pits Built
Down along the course OF the bridge,
except in Whitewater itself. are the
great pits, sixty feet or so long, ana
twenty-five feet wide, that are to hold
the massive bases of the new piers
Ready around the piles, logs twelve
to twenty inches through at the butt
and many feet long, which will soon
be driven to stand under the founda-
JlOnS Oh Ju6 CCuJIdl plcIo.
Just now, although the new minor
piers are going up steadily, the chief
work around the bridge is the convert
ing of the old iron framework into
junk, and the loading of 1t into cars.
To be handled, the iron is being
cut with the oxy-cetylene torches into
lengths of not over six feet. A torch
is an inoffensive looking slender in
strument, with viciously roaring thin
tongue of blue and white flame. Small
rubber tubes lead off to the gas-con-
tanning cylinders, which are painted
red, and shaped much like shells for
great guns.
Men Wear Goggles.
Calm young men with black goggles
handle the torches. They mark with
chalk the lengths to be cut, just as
YOU used to mark off stove-wood
lengths at home. The torch roars, al
shower of sparks beats the ground,
and the flame saws through the steel
as RAPIDLY as hand-saw handles
boards.
THAT flame has temperature or
5000 degrees" volunteered one of the
Young men. Hot enough to cook
with, anyway"
Five hundred tons of metal, the resi-
due of the old bridge, are being clean
ed out as rapidly as they can be han
died, but this doesn't interfere with
the concrete work, or the bringing IN
of materials for the new bridge.
The ironwork of the old bridge was
in a frightfu. condition, say the work
men. Flakes of rust as big as ones
hand and half as thick came off while
the bridge was being taken down. An
exhibit of bolts and small pieces or
the old iron in Auditor Bowman's
office at the court house shows that
many of them are half eaten through.
81 worked up there month, which
is Just a month longer than ! would
have done If I'd known what kind of
shane the bridge was in" said one OF
the men. !
New Steel On Ground.
OF the $50 tons of metal, half as
much as was in the old structure,
which will be used for the reinforcing
of the concrete Of the new bridge, al
most all is on the ground. and Is being
shifted to the places where 1t Will De
needed This steel isn't shaped like the
massive beams Of the old structure. IT
is in the form of long, thin. square
rods, roughened on every side, and up
to sixty feet in length.
Steel, the reporter gathered, was as
important in the making Of reinforced
concrete structure as the concrete It.
self. 1t sticks out from the top OF the
west pier which is finished up to the
line where the concrete arches are to
spring off, like teeth from huge
comb.
Down in the middle of the next pier,
which still is being built up, the rods
are being placed ready for the pouring
OF the concrete around them. They
stick up vertically out Of the concrete
for several feet, and at every two or
three feet Of their length are wired
crossroads. The whole mass will be
pierced vertically and horizontally with
the cross rods.
Work Is Just Starting.
Work is really just beginning, and
the construction, will move faster In
the next week or so, the reporter was
told Much of the material is on the
ground, but the big galloway which is
to be used to carry the materials and
drop them across where needed, is still
somewhere in America"
Something like 10000 cubic yards
Of concrete. beside the $50 tons OF re-
inforcing steel, will be needed says