The Seven Bridges of Paso Mayor

The Seven Bridges of Paso Mayor is a railway bridge belonging to the Rosario Puerto Belgrano Railroad, which crosses the course of the Sauce Grande River in the limits of the Coronel Rosales and Coronel Pringles Municipalities, south of the Buenos Aires Province, Argentina.

History

View of The Seven Bridges

It gets its name for being a bridge divided into seven sections, six of a type structure "cage" and one "open". It is in the Paso Mayor of the River Sauce Grande. Its was built in 1908. It is part of the Rosario Puerto Belgrano Railroad, which crosses from north to south, the south of the Santa Fe Province and all the west of the Buenos Aires Province.

It was used by a railway for the last time in 1977 when the southern section of that railway branch was closed by a decree of the military government.

In the 90 this railway line was leased to the company Ferro Expreso Pampeano S.A..

Structure

Internal view of the bridges.

West view.

The supports of each end are 266 meters each. Each has two wings. Each one of the boards of each section rests on six pillars that are in what was the bed of the formerly mighty river.

The entire structure of the bridge, both the "upper rope", "lower rope", "diagonal", "lower bracing", "upper bracing", "poles", "joists", "bolts" and other parts of the bridges were built according to the following generalities:

Its parts should be accessible for inspection, cleaning, maintenance and repair.
Its sections should be symmetrical, just like its rivets.
The support system of the structure is separated from the masonry of the piles.
Systems of brackets, braces or cords are used, so that the water rejected by the batteries does not cause deterioration in its lower part.

Declaration of Historical Heritage

In 2010 the Deliberative Council of the Coronel Rosales Municipality declared it "Architectural, Historical and Cultural Heritage". In 2012 it was declared a provincial historical heritage by the legislature of the Buenos Aires Province.

Controversy

Despite being recently declared historical heritage, it was left without one of its sections, the one used by Ferro Expreso Pampeano (Fepsa) to replace the damaged one in the Province of Santa Fe that crossed on Route 18 south of Rosario. The National Transportation Regulatory Commission demanded that Fepsa "refrain from carrying out any operation that is not authorized by the competent authority to change all or part of the bridge." Days later, with the withdrawal of the already completed structure, the control body reiterated the request for restitution of the railway material before 30 days and threatened to initiate legal actions.

Finally the bridge was restored to the original place ending the controversy.