The Bridge Arrived & The Big Dig!

Hi Folks:

Finally the Ashtabula Bridge section arrived in North Bloomfield at the Peterson farm where our outdoor set and miniature Ashtabula gorge has been dug by Roger Peterson Sr and his son. 

Its amazing how real this bridge looks! It's eight feet long and made with real miniature steel I-beams and a real wood deck across the top. This bridge is going to look great on camera with the train rolling across the top of it.

Thank you Mainline Bridges for this awesome donation and your sponsorship, and thank you Robert S. Morrison Foundation for providing some of the funding that paid to ship this bridge from Phoenix, AZ to North Bloomfield.

It should be noted, that this bridge will be donated to the Ashtabula Maritime and Surface Transportation Museum after filming.

If you would like to see the bridge, we will have it at The Lodge at Geneva on the Lake, Oct. 31st, 2013 from 1:00 - 5:00 PM, along with the train and many artifacts from the disaster. I will be speaking at a program as well as Carl Feather and Barbara Hamilton. The program is hosted by DiscoveryPaths LifeLong Learners as part of their lifelong learning series. The name of the program is "Really Horrible Disasters." Information about the program can be found here: http://www.thelodgeatgeneva.com/4317.aspx

In other news, we have been shooting B-Roll and interviews for the film as we gear up for major shooting to start when full funding is in place. As part of our shooting schedule, on Sept. 27, 2013 Dr. Don Stierman, a geophysicists from the University of Toledo came to the wreck site, with two of his grad students. They came to conduct a magnetometer survey of the area in hopes of finding a part of the bridge, which could then be sent to Case Western Reserve University's Engineering Lab for study. Unfortunately we found no large bridge parts, but were able to create a map of the ground under the site and found some interesting targets of interest. Armed with our survey map, metal detectors, shovels and picks we were able to return a few days later and locate more iron parts from the wreck as well as a coupling faceplate we think was from the Columbia engines tender. We also found bolts from the bridge, a track joint used to hook train track together on top of the bridge, a train car spring and a few broken car link pins. We are currently looking through old photos to verify if the coupling faceplate is in fact from the tender. This piece was found in the area where the Columbia was laying.

We filmed both days of digging and will include this as part of the documentary film. Below are photos from the dig.

A big thanks to the University of Toledo for doing the survey and the Township Parks Service for permission to dig and use of some of their equipment. Another big thanks to Fritz Kuenzel, David Tobias, Roger Peterson and Gary Tabor for all your help searching, digging and helping me drag all of my film gear down to the wreck site.

That's all to report for now.

Len Brown
Beacon Productions