June 1993

Site of Tank Bridge on the Toe River

This is the Tank Bridge site at the Toe River Hunt Club. The Club owns a long section the old ET&WNC right-of-way along here. You can make out the concrete abutment on the right side. When this was a logging railroad, I feel sure there was a wood trestle here, but when the ET&WNC came in they converted this and many other trestles to steel bridges to handle the weight of the new locomotives and cars. This bridge was a steel half-plate girder, which means the side girders were above and below the rails on the sides. It was approximately 20 feet long. There supposedly was a water tank, although I've never seen a photo of it, about 100 feet on the other side of the bridge that was fed from the small stream that comes down the hill here. This is a very lush, picturesque site.