To the south, this line connected with an existing extension between Horton and Herington.
By 1891, the line became a part of the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railway system. This system of lines included several thousand miles of trackage throughout the midwest.
This line was little more than a branch line throughout its entire existence. Another Rock Island line went north of this line, making this line a redundant spur.
In 1980, the Rock Island faced serious financial issues and would finally go bankrupt. As a result, the Herington-Salina line would be abandoned.
A small segment, from Abilene to Woodbine still exists as the Abilene & Smoky Valley Railroad, a tourist railroad.
06/26/21
In the central region of Kansas, there are numerous significant bridges. However, the Quadrangular Lattice Truss design is fairly rare in the area.
The structure is believed to have been built in approximately 1887, when the rail line through the area was constructed.
This bridge consists of two large Quadrangular Lattice Through Truss spans. These spans are approached by trestle approaches and contain riveted connections. This size "Lattice Through Truss" was seen in a standards and order book for this railroad, indicating it is almost certain that these are 1887 spans.
The bridge is set onto stone and wood substructures. A heavy rehabilitation took place in 2014, doing reinforcement to a pier on the west side of the bridge, as well as rehabilitating some beams of the trusses with bolted connections.
In addition, an I-Beam span was installed at the rehabilitated pier. Other work has been done on the bridge since it was first constructed in 1887, including re-driving piles and capping piers.
The west pier was originally an abutment it appears, with the trestle approaches not being original to the pier.
The portal bracing on the truss matches several spans that were built by the Lassig Bridge & Iron Works during this period. While this design of truss is relatively uncommon, the nearby Union Pacific line also contains several trusses of the same design, although built later.
Other than the Rock Island and the Union Pacific, no other Kansas railroad had much interest in utilizing this design.
Because of this, the author has ranked the bridge as being regionally significant, and is a perfect example of an 1880s version of this design.
Elsewhere in the Great Plains states, the concentration of Quadrangular trusses is much higher. Nebraska has a fair concentration of these types of trusses, and South Dakota has a high concentration of these trusses, most dating to the 1880s.
Because of this, as well as the great integrity of the bridge; the author considers this a must-see bridge in Kansas.
The photo above is an overview.
| Upstream | Salina Rail Bridge |
| Downstream | Enterprise Rail Bridge (East) |