A freight train crosses the Tulip Trestle in Greene County last week from the vantage point of the newly constructed observation platform. Jeremy Hogan | Herald-Times
Getting there from Bloomington: Ind. 45 to Ind. 54 toward Bloomfield. Turn right on Ind. 43 and go into Solsberry. Turn left at the Yoho General Store onto Tulip Road. After a few miles, look to the left to see the towering trestle. Then turn left onto Viaduct Road, which is paved. Cross a one-lane metal grate bridge, and the road turns to gravel. The parking area and the observation deck are just ahead on the left.
Located between Bloomfield and Solsberry near the crossroads of Tulip, the Indiana Railroad Co.’s 2,307-foot-long and 157-foot-tall steel-girded railroad trestle is one the longest of this type of bridge in the world still in use today.
People in the area call the Tulip Trestle “the viaduct,” but on official railroad maps it is Bridge X75-6. The longest viaduct in the nation, it was built in 1906 across the Richland Creek Valley. Construction was mostly by immigrant Italian workers making 30 cents an hour.
The 2,700 pound steel frame consists of 40 girder deck and tower spans, each ranging from 40 to 75 feet wide.
The project cost $246,504 — $20 million in 2015 dollars — and was finished the same day the first train rolled across on Dec. 21, 1906. Several trains still travel the span each day, many loaded with coal headed to Bloomington.
SOLSBERRY — Rita Sharr had lived in eastern Greene County more than 70 years before she finally saw a train chug across the Tulip Trestle, the longest steel-girded train bridge of its kind in the country still in use.
It was a morning a few months ago when she and other volunteers were installing footers for a new concrete observation platform for what locals call “the viaduct” when she heard the familiar sound of an approaching train. “It was headed west, a long string of boxcars,” she recalled.
That evening, eating supper with her husband at the Yoho General Store in the heart of Solsberry, she again heard that familiar rumble, then the sounding of a whistle. “Come on,” she said, rushing him out the door.
“We got there in time to see the train come over again, headed back to Bloomington,” she said. “This time, the cars were heaped full of coal. It went by for five, maybe 10 minutes. I got to see one train twice, on the same day. After all this time.”
The Tulip Trestle was constructed in 1906 and carried passenger cars until 1948. These days, it’s cargo that travels back and forth, often coal bound for Indiana University. The trestle is listed in off-road travel guides as a sight to see in Greene County, Indiana.
About four years ago, a family from Arizona vacationing in the area stopped to ask Sharr if she knew the way to Tulip Trestle. “People always have a hard time finding it,” she said. “They had been to the Goose Pond and wanted to see the viaduct on their way to Spring Mill State Park.”
Sometimes, it’s easier to show than tell. Sharr got in her car and told the family to follow in theirs. “When we got there, they said it would be nice to have a place where you could stop and sit and enjoy the scenery,” she said.
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