This work, originally built for the central railways by François MERCIER, a great public works technician, was delivered to traffic in November 1913. Its layout, in the form of an S, with a length of 272,7 m and with a height of 27,4 m is composed of 12 semicircular arches with an opening of 20 m each and has a particularity among the other railway bridges of the department, that of being equipped with circular gills (or ditchers) fitted out in the tympanum of the bridge, part located above the piers; the function of the gills being to reduce the hydraulic load applied to the structure in the event of flooding reaching the arches. This is impossible today, given the regularization of the flow of the river by the dams built since.
In 1939, the last train provided the last link from Saint-Just La Pendue to Saint-Just en Chevalet. The General Council having decided the closure, fourteen municipalities thus lost a precious means of communication.
The famous jib, so important to the inhabitants of these different municipalities including those of Saint-Georges de Baroille, thus ended his life.
The network was deconstructed after the war. Part of the tracks were then fitted out for road traffic.
This viaduct which spans the Loire, not far from the (new) Pinay dike, has become a curiosity for walkers and a pleasure for those who walk it and who can thus contemplate part of the meanders of the largest river in France. that is the LOIRE (and of which we are fortunate that it crosses our beautiful region of Forez.)
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