The famous Sayre, PA walkbridge! for 91 years, 1896 to 1987, it spanned the Lehigh Valley Railroad's engine terminal and yards in Sayre, PA.

If you photographed the LV in Sayre anytime during the 20th century, you walked up on that bridge!

I was fortunate to know the bridge during the last five years of its life. From 1983 to 1987 you could find me up there all the time, photographing Conrail trains in Sayre. and I sadly documented "the end" in 1987.

Foolishly, I never took any measurements of the bridge! :(  I was only ages 14 to 18 during those 5 years, and it never occurred to me then that I might someday want measurements.. at least I had the foresight to take some detail shots..thats something at least.

Probably somewhere dimensions, and perhaps even drawings exist!
but I havent seen any yet. I am making this webpage with the intention of developing detailed drawings of the bridge, for historic documentation, and for modeling purposes. If someone made measurements, perhaps this page will help track them down! Also, this page exists simply to share photos and information about this much-beloved, and missed, Sayre icon.

The B&W Aerial photos are from April, 1971, and are highly cropped to focus just on the bridge. (there is much more to those photos than what I am showing here!) they are from the Library of Congress collection. the original images can be found here: http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/ do a search for "Sayre PA" and you can find them all..including amazing aerial photos of the entire Sayre yard!

The rest of the photos are mine..

disclaimer..im not 100% certain that all the years I placed on my photos are absolutely correct! They *are* all between 1984 and 1987..but, for example, one marked "1986" might actually be 1987, etc...my original photos are all at the Sayre museum, and I always wrote dates on the back. (all the photos on this page are scanned from my original negs..and I dont have dates with my negs..) so I simply have to visit the museum to get the proper dates for all my photos, right down to the exact day. As soon as I do that, I will change all the dates on these photos to make them 100% accurate..

I discovered that different generations used two different terms for the bridge! in the earlier and middle 20th century it seems most Sayre residents called it "The Footbridge", then when I was hanging around on the bridge, in the 1980's, everyone said "The Walkbridge", which is the term I use. both words can be used interchangeably! ;) both are correct.

Scot Lawrence
September 2005
sscotsman@yahoo.com

Using some aerial photos, and Google Earth, I have calculated that the bridge was 410 feet long. thats just a rough estimate, but its very close. I would like to get *factual* dimensions however..

But based on this first rough overall dimension of 410 feet, that would make a model of the bridge 14 feet long in 1/29 scale! (the scale I model in) I might seriously consider building a 1/29 scale model of it someday! if I have the room for it on my future garden railroad..

In HO scale, its a more reasonable 4.7 feet. still quite big! but doable.  I have only ever seen one model of the bridge, it was on the HO scale model railroad that was in the first Sayre museum back in the mid 80's. it wasnt scale length, it was "selectively compressed", but it looked good! 

Here is a photo of the Walkbridge at the "Valley Railroad Musem" layout in 1987.
This was a great model railroad inside the Sayre Station.
(the layout sadly no longer exists today.)