Railroad Trestle At Buttermilk/Homewood Falls Beaver Falls Pennsylvania Vertical

by Lisa Wooten

Title

Railroad Trestle At Buttermilk/Homewood Falls Beaver Falls Pennsylvania Vertical

Artist

Lisa Wooten

Medium

Photograph - Photographs

Description

Featured: Nature Landmarks Landscape and Wildlife 11/4/2018

A trestle (sometimes tressel) is a rigid frame used as a support, historically a tripod used both as stools and to support tables at banquets. A trestle bridge is a bridge composed of a number of short spans supported by such frames. Since this type of bridge is sometimes called a "trestle" for short, each supporting frame is generally referred to as a bent. Timber and iron "trestles" (trestle bridges) were extensively used in the 19th century, the former making up from 1 to 3 per cent of the total length of the average railroad.[1] In the 21st century, steel and sometimes concrete trestles are commonly used to bridge particularly deep valleys while timber trestles remain common in certain areas.
Many timber trestles were built in the 19th and early 20th centuries with the expectation that they would be temporary. Timber trestles were used to get the railroad to its destination. Once the railroad was running, it was used to transport the material to replace trestles with more permanent works, transporting and dumping fill around some trestles and transporting stone or steel to replace others with more permanent bridges.[2]
In the later 20th century, tools such as the earthmover made it cheaper to construct a high fill directly instead of first constructing a trestle from which to dump the fill. Timber trestles remain common in some applications, most notably for bridge approaches crossing floodways, where earth fill would dangerously obstruct floodwater.
For the purposes of discharging material below, a coal trestle carried a dead-end track, rather than a bridge.
While I always enjoy hiking to a great waterfall, it’s even better when the waterfall is close to the road, but still has the feel of being in a secluded area. Buttermilk Falls (also known as Homewood Falls) in Beaver County is one such waterfall.
Buttermilk Falls is a plunge waterfall that features a roughly 20-foot drop into the greenish pool below. A train track runs just above the top of the falls, making this a great waterfall for those who, like me, love both trains and waterfalls.
According to the plaque near the top of the waterfall, the falls was given the name Buttermilk Falls by a group of Civil War soldiers and their wives in 1870. Raising their buttermilk-filled glasses to toast after their picnic, they named the waterfall Buttermilk Falls. However, since there are so many Buttermilk Falls in Pennsylvania (I know of at least nine), the waterfall is also commonly referred to as Homewood Falls. The name Homewood Falls comes from the Homewood sandstone quarry near the waterfall. It was from this area that stones were quarried to be used in nearby tunnels, roadways, and Western Penitentiary in nearby Pittsburgh. The quarry is visible as you make your way to the bottom of the waterfall from the parking area and creates some rather dramatic cliffs along the pathway. Google and Wikipedia

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October 3rd, 2018

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