BAILEY BRIDGE IMPROVES SAFETY FOR FAIR VISITORS

"Everybody grab some steel. When I give the word, dig in and push."

When Ed Welker, a National Guard sergeant from Perryville gave the "heave" command, more than 35 men responded, and an 80-foot-long section of bridge moved slowly, on rollers, across Cape LaCroix Creek.

Members of the Missouri Army National Guard's 1140th Combat Engineer Battalion Saturday erected a temporary, pedestrian bridge over the creek in Arena Park.

"If this was a war situation this bridge would have been set in place within two hours," said Lt. Mark Brown of Perryville. "But, here it took about six hours."

The giant bridge was hauled to Arena Park in a dozen vehicles from the Lake Wappapello area, where it was stored at a training site.

The 10-foot-wide bridge is more than a 100 feet long with ramps at both ends.

Its primary function is to allow safe access over Cape LaCroix Creek for visitors to this week's 140th SEMO District Fair at Arena Park.

"The Bailey Bridge is located adjacent to the Rodney Street Bridge, which is narrow and dangerous for pedestrians with the heavy fair traffic," said Bob Nitsch, a fair director.

Nitsch is predicting the bridge will carry its share of heavy fair traffic this year,

"We had more than 88,000 people at last year's fair," said Nitsch. "And it could be more this year."

Last year's fair attendance was dampened by heavy showers on the second to last day.

"We have some great musical entertainment again this year with Aaron Tippin, Ricky Van Shelton and Holly Dunn," Nitsch said. "Tickets sales have been good."

Ticket sales also have been brisk for other grandstand events during the week -- the demolition derby on Monday, Tuesday's tractor pull and the truck pull on Wednesday. Dunn performs Thursday, Tippin on Friday and Van Shelton on Saturday.

The grandstand entertainment today is the horse show, beginning at 1:30 p.m.

Today is free day at the fair. The gates open at 11 a.m., and the carnival midway opens at noon. A pet parade will be held at 1 p.m.

The Bailey Bridge is named for its inventor, Sir Donald Coleman Bailey, an English civil engineer, said Brown.

In 1941, Bailey gave his first sketch of the bridge to the British War Office. The bridge, used in World War II, was designed to be moved, rebuilt or replaced in several hours, even under enemy fire. It was used widely by allied armies in northwest Europe and Italy between 1943 and 1945.

Bailey was knighted for his idea in 1946 by King George VI.

The bridge at Arena Park is called a "single, single, Bailey Bridge," said Brown. "It comes in sections, and during WWII, soldiers could throw up side-by-side sections, making room for some army vehicles to use it."

The bridge is built by manpower alone and is made from prefabricated parts, the most notable of which are its light-steel panels or trusses linked by pinned joints, built one piece at a time.

Each panel or truss weighs more than 600 pounds, and each of the transoms or I-crossbeams that carry the walking or vehicular panels weigh 800 pounds. Using carrying sticks, eight Guardsmen can lift both bridge components to the assembly site.

The bridge is unique in that it is assembled one section at a time on one side of the stream, then pushed by troops on a series of rollers to the other side.

Brown said the weight of bridge sections that are being assembled act as a counter-weight to keep the completed end of the bridge elevated until it reaches the far side of the stream. At that point the bridge is lowered onto another set of rollers.

In a combat situation a fully-manned and trained bridge crew of 66 can put one of the bridges together and in place, in two hours. About 40 men installed the bridge at Arena Park Saturday.

"It will stay here about a month," Brown said. "Other platoons will remove it. This gives more men an opportunity to receive experience working on a Bailey Bridge Team."