ABSTRACT
ABSTRACT: Henry Meiggs of San Francisco, a fugitive from the U.S. Government, signed a contract with the Peruvian Government in 1869 to build a 136 mile railroad connecting Callao (main port of Peru) and Lima (the Capital about 7.5 miles away) with Oroya (a small town close to the mining district of Cerro de Pasco) in six years for U.S. $25,875,000. Mr. Meiggs was the biggest employer of U.S. engineers next to the U.S. Army at that time. The Verrugas Viaduct was 51.8 miles from Lima and 5,850' above sea level in the Andes mountains. The wrought iron viaduct was designed, fabricated and shipped by the Baltimore Bridge Company via land and sea to Callao from where it was transported to the site on rail and mules. The viaduct consisted of four Fink truss spans, three of 100' in length and one 125' long. The three piers were 146', 252', and 179' in height; and were all 50' wide. The total length of the viaduct was 575'. The fabricator had planned to frame the spans in the bed of the gorge and lift them bodily into place. However, Leffert L. Buck, thew Resident Engineer, devised an ingenious erection scheme, and the viaduct was opened to traffic on January 8, 1873. In March 1889, heavy floods and rock slides in the gorge pushed the central pier causing collapse of the bridge. Mr. Buck was retained for the replacement bridge and he designed a cantilever bridge with two piers, two side spans of 140 ft. each, and a central opening of 235 ft. The existing abutments were used with the same span of 575 ft. Construction started on July 1, 1890, and the bridge was completed on January 1, 1891. This paper describes details of both bridges, difficulties encountered during their constructions, and people connected with them.
