Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1

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Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1

Carries	2 railroad tracks
Crosses	Willamette River
Locale	Portland, Oregon
Maintained by	BNSF Railway
Design	vertical lift bridge
Longest span	516 feet
Clearance below	200 feet when open
Opening date	1908
Maps and aerial photos Street map from Google Maps or Yahoo! Maps Topographic map from TopoZone Aerial image or topographic map from TerraServer-USA Satellite image from Google Maps or Microsoft Virtual Earth

The Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1, also known as the St. Johns Railroad Bridge or the Willamette Draw, is a truss bridge with a vertical lift that spans the Willamette River in Portland, Oregon. The BNSF Railway owns the bridge, and the 5.1 denotes the rail mileage from Portland's Union Station. The bridge consists of five sections, with the two sections closest to the bank fixed. The center section is a movable lift span.

The first bridge was built by Northern Pacific Railroad in 1908 with the middle section being the longest swing span bridge in the world. This movable middle section was replaced by a vertical lift span that was completed in 1989 at a cost of $38 million. This 516 ft. long lift span is the fourth highest in the world, providing vertical clearance of 200 ft.

[edit] Books

Wood, Sharon. The Portland Bridge Book. Portland: Oregon Historical Society, 2001. ISBN 0-87595-211-9.

	Bridges in the metropolitan area of Portland, Oregon See also: Transportation in Portland, Oregon
	Across the Willamette River (north to south) St. Johns Bridge - Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 5.1 - Fremont Bridge - Broadway Bridge - Steel Bridge - Burnside Bridge - Morrison Bridge - Hawthorne Bridge - Marquam Bridge - Ross Island Bridge - Sellwood Bridge - Lake Oswego Railroad Bridge - Abernethy Bridge - Oregon City Bridge
	Across the Columbia River (west to east) Burlington Northern Railroad Bridge 9.6 - Interstate Bridge - Glenn L. Jackson Memorial Bridge