Longest span 630 feet (190 m) Opened 1942 | Design Warren deck truss Total length 1,094 m Height 152 m Bridge type Truss bridge | |
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Locale Shasta County, California Official name Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Bridge Similar Shasta Dam, Sundial Bridge at Turtle Bay, Potem Falls, Bidwell Bar Bridge, Lake Shasta Caverns | ||
Pit river bridge northbound
The Pit River Bridge (officially the Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Bridge) is a double deck, deck truss, road and rail bridge over Shasta Lake in Shasta County, California. The bridge, carrying Interstate 5 on its upper deck and Union Pacific Railroad on its lower deck, was built in 1942 as part of the construction of the Shasta Dam/Shasta Lake reservoir system. The Pit River Bridge was constructed to replace the Lower Pit River Bridge, as the rising waters of the Shasta Lake reservoir would have put the older bridge underwater. The entire bridge spans 3,588 feet (1,094 m) long on the upper deck and 2,754 feet (839 m) on the lower deck. With a height of 500 feet (150 m) above the old Pit River bed, it is structurally the highest double decked bridge in the United States; however, today the bridge sits only about 40 feet (12 m) above the water when Shasta Lake is full.
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At the time it was built, the highway on the bridge was signed as U.S. Route 99 and the rail line was owned by Southern Pacific. The Coast Starlight, the passenger train line operated by Amtrak that runs from Los Angeles north to Seattle, also uses the bridge.
The bridge is officially known as the Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Bridge, to honor military veterans from California who have fought in foreign wars.