Upon leaving the Mount Wood Cemetery (Mount Wood Revisited) above Wheeling, West Virginia my camera club friend Tom and I crossed the Ohio River and traveled 5 miles south on Route 7 to the town of Bellaire, Ohio. We previously learned that Bellaire is home to one of the railroad bridges featured in the movie The Unstoppable.
Finding it was easy enough, in fact there are two big bridges crossing the Ohio River. You can’t miss them when you come into town. There is the railroad bridge with two, connecting approaches. An elevated, great stone arch viaduct connects from the south. A set of elevated steel tracks connects from the north. The second one is the Bellaire Toll Bridge or Interstate Bridge as it is sometimes called. The Bellaire Toll Bridge is a riveted metal cantilever-truss style that connects Benwood, West Virginia to Bellaire, Ohio. It was closed to traffic in 1991 and is currently scheduled for demolition.
Bellaire Toll Bridge
We didn’t have any information on the Bellaire Toll Bridge and as a result I have no photographs of this bridge (yet). As it turns out this one was also in a movie. Special Agent Clarice Starling (played by Jodie Foster) is shown crossing this bridge in an aerial shot toward the end of The Silence of the Lambs, on her way to investigate a lead in the fictitious town of Belvedere, Ohio.
I’m not sure if we were to hungry from our shoot at Mount Wood or we just couldn’t “see” any images, so we didn’t stay very long in Bellaire. I only have a few photos of the north and south approaches to the railroad bridge that I can share.
I plan on going back to Ohio, next week, to get some photos of the Bellaire Toll Bridge before it is demolished. Also, I will try to get some additional photos of the Bellaire Railroad Bridge from a better vantage point. Hopefully the weather will cooperate. I will update my galleries after the trip. As always, your comments are welcome.
Additional Information: The Great Stone Viaduct, Adding Tracks To The North, Bellaire Toll Bridge.
