Quite the Engineering Feat

The Huey P. Long Bridge is a favorite railfan location. It is owned by the

New Orleans Public Belt Railroad, which is owned by the City of New Orleans and managed by the Public Belt Railroad Commission. The information below was taken from the website of the American Society of Civil Engineers: https://www.asce.org/project/huey-p--long-bridge/ "It remains today one of the great bridge engineering accomplishments for railway and highway bridges built in the country." - Historic American Engineering Record, Southeast Regional Office, National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior, 2005 By the late 1880s, New Orleans was being served individually by multiple railroad trunk lines. A committee of citizens decided that this wasn't the most efficient and economical way to provide rail service to the port area along the river. They decided that a belt railroad was needed to provide switching among the different trunks. Prior to the construction of the Huey P. Long Bridge, railcars and trucks had to be ferried across the river. With the construction of this bridge, the Port of New Orleans became better connected to the rail infrastructure on both banks. Many conditions, such as the "gumbo soil" in and around the river, low land approaches, strong river currents, and the need for high navigation clearances required for ocean-going vessels, made the design and construction of this bridge difficult. Dr. Karl Terzaghi, who had developed a science of soil mechanics based on investigations of the permeability and compressibility of soil samples, concluded that the caissons of the four main piers should be sealed in a sand layer at a depth of approximately 170 feet and that the fatigue loading should not be more than 5.5 tons per square foot. Prior to Dr. Terzaghi's involvement, it had been recommended that the main piers should be founded from 225 feet to 250 feet below Gulf level. Even when the widening of the bridge was started in 2006, it was determined that no changes to the caisson foundations were needed. Designed by the firm of Modjeski, Masters and Chase, the Huey P Long Bridge was the first bridge to cross the Mississippi River at New Orleans. Its dual-track railroad portion was the longest, highest railroad bridge in the world at the time with a total length of 22,995 feet. The highway portion, 8,076 feet long, consisted originally of two lanes cantilevered off each side. This bridge opened up the southern portion of the country to improved transportation of commerce and people.

The post card was published by Tichnor Brothers Inc. I have 10 post cards from them. It was a long lived company and a major publisher and printer of a wide variety of postcards types from 1912 to 1987 and based at 160 North Washington Street, Boston and Cambridge, MA. Their view-cards were produced on a national level. Their view-cards were produced on a national level. They also produced a black white open halftone series on the hurricane of 1938. Their photochomes went under the trade name Lusterchrome. They also produced an early Tichnor Gloss series that was so heavily retouched they floated somewhere between being artist drawn and being a photograph. The company was sold in 1987 to Paper Majic.