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Cellpic Sunday – Union Pacific Bridge

Union Pacific Railroad Bridge.

Council Bluffs, Iowa.

From our hotel in Council Bluffs, Iowa, I could see a railroad bridge off in the distance. It wasn’t long and I could hear the unmistakable sound of a train. I was able to capture the freight train as it crossed the Missouri River into Omaha, Nebraska. There is a wealth of information on the history of this important bridge on Wikipedia. The bridge completed the final connection between the western and eastern parts of the transcontinental rail system.

The original bridge was completed in 1872, rebuilt twice, and since 1916 has carried traffic in its current configuration. The rail truss bridge stands 62 feet (19 m) above the river and uses piers built from the 1880 bridge. The total length of the bridge is 1,750 feet (533 m). There is much detail on the history of the three bridges built on this site on one of my favorite bridge reference sources at John Wicks’ site here.

About the photo: I used the 10X telephoto mode on my Samsung S23U as I was quite a distance from the bridge. Still, I needed two images to create this extra wide panorama. The resolution of the image as posted on my WordPress site makes it appear out of focus slightly. I recommend clicking on the image to view it on my Flickr site in 2K HD resolution.

Panoramic stitching was completed in Luminar Neo and the final image was tweaked with Enhanced AI. I added just a bit of Golden Hour to emphasize the color in the sky as sunset approached.

I encourage fellow bloggers to create their own Cellpic Sunday posts. I never have a specific topic for this feature, and the only rules are that the photo must be captured with a cell phone, iPad, or another mobile device… If you have an image from a drone or even a dashcam, that’s acceptable as well. The second rule is to link your challenge response to this post or leave a comment here with a link to your post in the comment. Oh, and, you don’t have to post it on a Sunday.

John Steiner

42 comments

    • I really have fun capturing bridges, and if I’m lucky, I can catch a train on the bridge. Not a common occurrence, though. I’ll keep an eye on your page for more bridge photos, Robert!

      Reply

  26. Bridges are great topics for photographic studies, John. I didn’t know the story behind this one. What a time that must have been to be able to travel across this country in days instead of months. It changed the course of history probably as much as any war.

    Reply

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