We have a 40 acre woodlot on the far side of a year-round stream from our house The brook is about 30 feet bank to bank, quite low at times but raging high water at snowmelt and after the occasional toad-strangler. When we bought the place in 1986 there was the remains of a primitive bridge, unreinforced concrete abutments with rotted tree-trunk beams cast in place. My dad and I cut some new beams and pulled them into place with a neighbor's wrecker and a snatch block. With new decking we had access to get a Mighty Mite portable mill in to cut lumber for our house and eventual shop. Over the years the old bridge rotted out again and the abutments were damaged by flood and ice, and the access for timber harvests was by fording, with a hard pull out of the near side. This year we're getting a new bridge thanks to our son Miles who is a timber framer and all-around force of nature.
Miles started by digging down below the streambed and placing stacked keyed reinforced concrete "riprap" blocks back from the banks, pinned together with rebar and backfilled with stone. He had acquired two large steel beams from a house mover, 24" high with 12" flanges, one 53' and one 41' long. He had planned to cut one and lengthen the other by 6' but once the abutments were in realized they both need to be over 50', so he found another section at an amazing yard in Rutland. https://www.macsteelvt.org/ The flanges are narrower but should be sturdy enough given the span and loads. Our friend Chelsie came over to do the welding.
Yesterday we loaded the beams onto a flatbed trailer and moved them to about 30 yards from the stream. Miles walked them down to the near-side abutment and set them out as far as the excavator could manage with one end in the stream. The machine is about 9 tons and the beams over 2.5 tons so the loaded boom could extend out only about 8' beyond the tracks. Miles lowered the excavator down into the streambed and shifted the beams onto the far abutment. Climbing out wasn't so easy and he had to go a ways downstream to make it. It's amazing what he can do with this small excavator..
Once Chelsie welds some spacers in and they are pinned to the abutments, a tamarack deck will go on and enough fill will be pushed in place to make the approaches manageable. The whole affair is about 6' above the streambed and the abutments pretty well protected so it should last a while.
I have a hard time expressing how glad I am to have my son living nearby who is so capable and willing to help out. It has been a great pleasure watching him learn his trade and become who he is. We could have hired this job out but it would have been an entirely different experience. Miles' work can be seen on Instagram under vtheavytimber.
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Originally Posted by Bill George
