The areas of application and advantages of the over-ground piping or pipe section layout are given. The classification according to the design features of the most common systems of overhead pipeline crossings on the basis of generalization of scientific publications and experience of pipeline construction are considered. The authors indicate the ranges of the effective spans for rectilinear single-span and multi-span crossings without compensators of longitudinal strains (with the fixed ends) and also in multi-span systems with compensators depending on the diameter of pipes, nominal pipe wall thickness and brand of pipe steel for gas, oil and oil-products pipelines respectively. The description of the design of beam systems of overhead pipeline crossings with a truss-form supporting element of the operating pipeline is given and the procedure for estimating their stress-strain state is suggested. According to the constructed cargo and unit calculation schemes of the truss with a cross-section in the form of an isosceles triangle (height – 3 m, width – 2.02 m) the stiffness coefficients of elastic-malleable supports is determined. The selection of cross-sections of truss members is carried out, the required deflections of the pipeline and the emerging internal force factors (bending moments and reactions of elastic-malleable supports) at the points where the pipeline rests on the truss are found. The strength of the pipeline to the action of the maximum bending moment is checked and the possibility of the cross-water layout of the beam crossing of the gas pipeline is shown. This is the D_ext ×δ_n =1420×18,7 mm gas pipeline with the length of L_cr =102 m. It has compensators with a truss-form supporting element which eliminates the use of intermediate supports. Thus, it was shown that the truss makes it possible to double or triple the length of the span using no intermediate supports and preserving sufficient horizontal rigidity