Category talk:Trestle bridges in the United States

memberships in category questions

I received a polite inquiry from User:Dmwilliams(?) about items categorized in Category:Trestle bridges, which seemed to suggest that I might have incorrectly added that to some/many articles. I think that must refer to some of the members of subcategory Category:Trestle bridges in the United States, and I'd rather have discussion online, here.

Dmwilliams, I am not offended, and I think that I and anyone else who has made thousands of edits do make mistakes occasionally. But I am not aware of my making widespread errors of any kind, ever, really, and I do not understand how this could have happened. Could you please point to some specific examples of questionable categorization?

Towards advancing that I just tried checking the "WikiBlame" tool (under "View history", select "Addition/removal" near the top) about addition of "Trestle bridges" to the two articles beginning with "A", I find it was User:Hmains, not myself, who added Category:Trestle bridges in the United States to:

Adamson Bridge in this diff in 2017. I see no reason to question that.
Arboretum Sewer Trestle in this diff in 2017. About this one, the picture included does not obviously show a trestle, but perhaps there is a trestle internally, covered by a veneer of bridge or stone. The article makes statements clearly identifying it as a trestle bridge however, which I expect Hmains relied upon, and I see no reason to question the sourcing.

Dmwilliams, I wonder if you might be questioning the category sometimes because the current bridge at a site is not a trestle bridge, when a historic bridge at the site was in fact a trestle bridge? Such an article would be about both, so the categorization would then be correct IMO.

The 67 items currently in the U.S. subcategory are:

sincerely, --Doncram (talk) 14:43, 16 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Trying a few more more:

FWIW, checking about the Genesee Arch Bridge, which sounds like not a trestle bridge, Category:Trestle bridges was added by article creator User:B137 in this diff in 2015. The current article documents that an 1852-completed previous bridge was a wooden trestle bridge, in fact believed to be the highest and longest such bridge in the world, so IMO the category correctly describes (part of the) content in the article.
About the Santa Fe Arroyo Seco Railroad Bridge, which I thought I might have created but did not, there was an original trestle bridge that is covered in the article, and Category:Trestle bridges in the United States was correctly IMO added by User:Hmains in this diff in 2017.
And I did create Rapallo Viaduct article, which is about a former railroad trestle long ago buried in dirt, and the category was correctly IMO added by Hmains in this diff.

--Doncram (talk) 06:35, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

the former Bridge, the Portageville Viaduct, was a trestle. B137 (talk) 14:27, 18 September 2020 (UTC)[reply]

OK, so first I'll apologize for never joining in the discussion I initiated. At the time I was a somewhat of a loss how to prove my case, and the Wikipedia style of creation, editing, writing is confusing and not very user friendly. Times have changed a little so hopefully I'm doing this correctly.

First it seems this page has become an orphan, or whatver the Wikipedia term for it is. Nothing links to it except it's own talk page, and the vast majority of it is now "List of Trestle Bridges" and not to speak ill of anyone, it's gotten worse.

It appears that even in the engineering world some authors have confused the two general definitions of trestle.

One is a table or desk supported by two, for lack of a better description, "A frame" supports.

The other a trestle bridge is similar in supports with additional key element, cross bracing.

A Causeway bridge made of multiple, spans any material, which is supported by only verticle elements at the point where two spans meet. An example the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway.

A Viaduct is similar to a causeway in that the point where the spans meet are supported by piers or towers.

A trestle bridge has two elements that these bridge types do not. Each supporting element is cross braced between the others and it is a continuous support structure with now free spans, the structure supporting a wooden roller-coaster.

There are some bridges that I would admit bay be a hybrid type with some trestle like support, but that support is not continuous over the length of the bridge

I'm not sure if it still exists but there was a lengthy discussion on the talk page for "Trestle Bridge" regarding this same confusion over what a Trestle Bridge is.

The page that seems to have taken over for this one is a mess, it lists things that don't exist a few miles from my house, bridges that were removed, or buried, aquaducts, arch supported span bridges, and for some reason people seem to think a Truss is a Trestle. There is one bridge named after I believe a surfing term "Trestle"

And I'm not even going to get into the argument that just because a bridge has always been called a Trestle, or has Trestle in the name, does not make it a Trestle.

It's like a Kleenex is a tissue, but not all tissues are Kleenex.

Not all Bridges are Trestles. We don't build Trestles anymore, the ones that still exist are few, and few of those are in good repair. Most are historic,

The vast majority were built for railroad lines, mostly because timber was cheap and readily available, and with all the supports and bracing it's a very strong design. They were also faster to build than hauling in backfill to level out the grade of the tracks. In fact many were later buried beneath gravel and soil after the line was completed. Railroads still build some very small Trestle bridges, normally only a hundred feet long or less, nothing like the grand sprawling Trestles of the past. Dmwilliams1979 (talk) 14:47, 24 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]