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For many years, the Business Depot was served by an ex-Air Force Fairbanks-Morse H-12-44. In July 2010, the UCRY repainted their ex-Rarus Railway GP9 black with a large "Utah Central" in gold across the engine compartment, and moved it to BDO to replace the FM locomotive. Reason for this replacement is unknown; according to a Utah Central employee, the H-12-44 had only 100 running hours in 2009. |
In September 2010, two GP-15 diesel locomotives 1418 and 1401, refurbished from LTEX were delivered to the UCRY's headquarters at the old sugar factory. They are painted in the distinctive Patriot Rail corporate scheme (red overall with a blue stripe highlighted by gold pin stripes down the middle with an eagle on the nose). |
The Utah Central was once known for its eclectic mix of second-hand locomotives. For a time no two were painted alike (excepting nos. 1418 and 1401). Some notable former examples of this are an ex-Kennecott High-Clearance GP-39 locomotive originally used in the Bingham Canyon copper pit (RARW 1010) and an ex-Rarus Railway chop-nose GP9 (UCRY 201). Currently most of the Utah Central locomotive fleet is painted in the colors of its parent Patriot Rail. |
The Kingman Terminal Railroad operates about 3 miles of track at the Kingman Industrial Park north of Kingman, Arizona. It is owned by Patriot Rail Company and its reporting mark is KGTR. |
The Muskogee Company, although a Philadelphia company, was founded in Delaware on February 27, 1923. The company officers were brothers C. Jared Ingersoll, industrialist, as president, and John H. W. Ingersoll, attorney and industrialist, as vice president and treasurer. The Muskogee Company owned large interests in several railroads in and about northeastern Oklahoma. |
According to a historical summary written by the DeGolyer Library at Southern Methodist University, which holds the archives of the Muskogee Company, the company history actually began in the 1890s, when a group of Philadelphia businessmen, headed by C. J. Ingersoll, built the Choctaw, Oklahoma & Gulf Railroad (CO&G), which ran from Hartford, Arkansas to McAlester, Oklahoma (then known as Indian Territory). These men intended the railroad to serve their coal mines in Arkansas, the most notable of which were:the Sebastian County Coal & Mining Co., American Smokeless Coal Co., Mazzrad Coal & Mining Co., and Garland Coal & Mining Co. |
In 1902, Ingersoll's group sold the CO&G to a competitor and began the Midland Valley Railroad, which would run from Ft. Smith, Arkansas to Wichita, Kansas. The route was to go northwest from Ft. Smith through Muskogee, Tulsa and the Osage Nation into Kansas, where there were other coal interests. |
Coal shipments from company-owned mines to colder western regions of the United States via the Muskogee Company-owned Midland Valley was the original plan for profit. Oil discoveries in Oklahoma later produced lucrative revenues for the Muskogee Company railroads that were strategically located in high production areas of the state. |
Seaboard Coast Line Industries, Inc., incorporated in Delaware on May 9, 1969, was a railroad holding company that owned the Seaboard Coast Line Railroad, its subsidiary Louisville and Nashville Railroad, and several smaller carriers. Its railroad subsidiaries were collectively known as the Family Lines System. Its headquarters were in Jacksonville, Florida, in the United States. Through 1979, the Family Lines network totaled in 13 states. |
The company succeeded SCL Industries, Inc., incorporated August 1, 1968, in Virginia and renamed Seaboard Coast Line Industries, Inc. on February 5, 1969. |
On November 1, 1980, Seaboard Coast Line Industries merged with Chessie System, Inc. to form CSX Corporation (Chessie-Seaboard Multiplied), and in 1983 the Family Lines units were combined as the Seaboard System Railroad. In 1986, Seaboard System was renamed CSX Transportation, and then merged with sister CSX Corp. subsidiary Chessie System to form a single new railroad, reporting mark CSXT. |
Iron Road Railways Incorporated (IRR) was a railroad holding company which owned several short line railroads in the U.S. state of Maine, as well as the Canadian provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. |
IRR was formed in 1994 and headquartered in Alexandria, Virginia. Its president was Robert T. Schmidt and officers included Benjamin F. Collins, John F. DePodesta, and Daniel Sabin. |
In 2002, IRR's "Bangor and Aroostook System" (BAR, CDAC, VBB, and QS/NV) entered bankruptcy protection and service became jeopardized. Both Canadian National and New Brunswick Southern Railway applied to the Surface Transportation Board for permission to operate former BAR lines that served major industrial customers in northern Maine. CN was granted permission to operate from Van Buren, Maine to Madawaska, Maine, while NBSR was granted permission to operate former BAR lines from Brownville Junction south to Searsport and north to Madawaska; neither applications became necessary after the BAR lines were sold. |
The BAR, CDAC, and part of the QS/NV were sold in October 2002 to Rail World which reorganized the lines under its newly formed subsidiary Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway. |
The NV south of Newport to Wells River, Vermont was purchased by the state of Vermont and operation contracted to Washington County Railroad. |
The VBB had been operated on tracks leased from owner Canadian Pacific. In January 2003, Canadian Pacific sold this small line to Canadian National. |
Former IRR president Robert T. Schmidt retained ownership of the Windsor and Hantsport Railway while another former IRR officer Daniel Sabin took ownership of the Iowa Northern Railway. |
In addition to streetcar lines, the Van Sweringen Brothers of Cleveland, Ohio owned a vast network of steam railroads. |
The New York Central Railroad had owned the closely parallel New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad since 1882, soon after its opening. Due to fears of prosecution under the 1914 Clayton Antitrust Act, the NYC sold the line on July 5, 1915 to the newly formed Nickel Plate Securities Corporation, a holding company formed by the Vans. They were at first only interested in the line to provide a right-of-way for their Shaker Heights Rapid Transit to downtown Cleveland. |
By 1920 the Vans had decided they wanted control of other railroads, including the Lehigh Valley Railroad, Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, Western Maryland Railway, Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway, Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway, Pere Marquette Railway, Cincinnati Northern Railroad and Toledo, St. Louis and Western Railroad (Clover Leaf), as well as partial ownership in the Lake Erie and Western Railroad and Philadelphia and Reading Railway. |
The Vaness Company was incorporated in Delaware on January 9, 1922 as a holding company to own all the other holding companies. The Clover Leaf Company was incorporated February 25 to own the Toledo, St. Louis and Western Railroad, and the Western Company March 11 for the Lake Erie and Western Railroad. The LE&W was bought for $3 million from the New York Central Railroad on April 26. On July 1, 1923 and LE&W and Clover Leaf were merged into the Nickel Plate. |
For the next several years, the Vans bought up the stock of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (including its Hocking Valley Railway), the Pere Marquette Railway and the Erie Railroad. On August 20, 1924 they announced plans to merge the four companies into the New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad (Nickel Plate) to form a new New York, Chicago and St. Louis Railway. They applied to the Interstate Commerce Commission on February 21, 1925, but were denied March 2, 1926 due to unsound financing. The plan was opposed by many C&O stockholders. |
On February 3, 1927 the Vans, along with the New York Central Railroad and Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, bought the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. Four days later the Vans announced that they would make the C&O the centerpiece of their system, selling the Erie and Pere Marquette to them. |
The Alleghany Corporation was incorporated January 26, 1929 in Maryland to hold the Vans' stock in the Nickel Plate, Chesapeake Corporation, Erie and C&O, as well as a partial ownership of the Buffalo, Rochester and Pittsburgh Railway (traded to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in March for the B&O's part of the W≤ the Vans acquired the rest of it from the NYC at the same time). In April 1930 the Alleghany Corporation bought the Chicago and Eastern Illinois Railroad and 46% of the Missouri Pacific Railroad, gaining a majority of the MoPac on May 13. The Hocking Valley Railway merged into the C&O April 30, 1930. |
Due to the Great Depression, the planned "Fourth System" failed. The new Midamerica Company bought most of the old assets on September 30, 1935 in an attempt to reorganize. |
North American RailNet, Inc., based in Bedford, Texas, was a holding company of short line railroads. It formerly owned the following: |
By 1948, there were 14 railroads in North America with more than 1000 locomotives in service each. Twelve were located in the US and two were in Canada. The total number of steam locomotives and the number of route miles for each railroad in 1948 are given by Bruce (1952). |
Bruce (1952) also reports that by the end of 1949 a total of approximately 29,000 steam locomotives were left on Class I railroads in the United States. |
The Tariffville train crash was a railroad accident that occurred on January 15, 1878 on the Connecticut Western line, then a route linking Hartford and the Hudson Valley. |
On January 15, 1878, around 10:00 PM, a passenger train returning from Hartford crossed the wooden bridge spanning the Farmington River at Tariffville, as one of the two main bridge spans collapsed, dropping two locomotives, one baggage car and three passenger coaches into the icy river. Some people from New Hartford hitching a ride between the cars were killed when they were thrown beneath the wreck. The wreck claimed 13 lives and injured more than 70, some severely. Many of the passengers were returning from a Protestant revival meeting in Hartford featuring well-known evangelist Dwight L. Moody. |
Residents of Tariffville provided emergency assistance for passengers and provided them with dry clothing and shelter. Dr. D.P. Pelletier was the first Hartford surgeon notified of the accident. He went to a drug store on Capitol Avenue and used the store's telephone to summon other doctors for a relief train in what is possibly the first emergency telephone call. A special relief train carrying physicians and other rescue personnel was sent that became known as the "Samaritan Special." |
The Billups Neon Crossing Signal was a prototypical grade crossing signal installed at a dangerous Illinois Central crossing on Mississippi Highway 7 (now Mississippi Highway 332) in Grenada, Mississippi. |
It was installed in the mid-1930s by inventor Alonzo Billups over growing concern due to numerous accidents at the crossing involving trains and motor vehicles. Like nothing before, the Billups signal was a large gantry spanning the highway and was likely the first such use of a gantry-style crossing of the type now in relatively common use. Upon approach of a train, a giant neon sign lit up with the words "Stop-DEATH-Stop" beneath a lighted skull and crossbones. Flashing neon arrows indicated the direction of oncoming trains and an air raid siren in lieu of bells provided aural warning. As a backup, standard railway flashers were mounted below the neon sign. The signal was known locally as the "Skull and Crossbones." |
The onset of World War II brought about a scarcity of neon which, when coupled with maintenance problems with the signal (often manifesting themselves in the siren sounding continuously until a crew arrived to stop it) meant that no further signals were produced. The prototype was removed after less than thirty years of service, being replaced with standard railway crossing flashers and bells. |
The Central Kansas Railway (CKR) was a short-line railroad operating of trackage in the U.S. state of Kansas and west to Scott City, Kansas. All trackage was former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway branchlines in Kansas & northern Oklahoma. The Kansas Southwestern Railway, a sister company which operated former Missouri Pacific Railroad branchlines in Kansas, was merged into the CKR in 2000. Owned by Omnitrax, CKR's main business was from the Kansas wheat harvests, as well as other traffic. |
The Watco Companies of Pittsburg, Kansas purchased all of the CKR's lines on May 31, 2001 and formed the Kansas and Oklahoma Railroad. |
The Brooklyn Heights Railroad was a street railway company in the U.S. state of New York. It leased and operated the streetcar lines of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit Company, but started out with the Montague Street Line, a short cable car line connecting the Wall Street Ferry with downtown Brooklyn along Montague Street. Eliphalet Williams Bliss owned the railroad. |
According to articles in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, BHRR included the following lines between 1895 and 1899: |
The railroad also partially owned the Bridge Operating Company, a line across the Williamsburg Bridge that was also owned by New York Railways. |
Amtrak's Arrow Reservation System is used nationally in the United States by Amtrak employees to take reservations, check train status, and monitor Amtrak equipment throughout the of the Amtrak network. Arrow was created to make Amtrak's reservation taking more simple. It went on-line November 1, 1981. Arrow development is done in-house by Amtrak developers. |
The Arrow application is similar to most major airline reservation systems, and runs on IBM's Transaction Processing Facility system. The system is used directly by Amtrak employees and travel agents, and is also the basis for Amtrak.com and Quik-Trak reservations. |
On August 26, 2007, the system was the victim of a major power outage at the data center, which impacted Amtrak nationwide. All Amtrak agents were forced to hand-write tickets, and were unable to use the system for any other purposes. |
In 2015 a project to upgrade Amtrak's reservation infrastructure left the future of Arrow uncertain with a decision to upgrade or replace it unmade. |
Balmer Yard is a rail yard located in the Interbay neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. The yard is owned by BNSF Railway, and was built by predecessor Great Northern Railway as Interbay Yard. As part of a modernization in the late 1960s, which included a 16-track hump, it was renamed after former GN vice president Thomas Balmer. The nearby engine servicing area is still known as Interbay. The yard is over in size and has 41 parallel tracks for switching cars. |
General Roy Stone's Centennial Monorail was demonstrated at the Centennial International Exhibition of 1876, the first official World's Fair in the U.S., which was held in Philadelphia (Pennsylvania) to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. |
The track was approx 155 m (170 yards) long and joined the Horticultural Hall and the Agricultural Hall in Fairmount Park. It was used by one elaborately decorated double-decker railcar in Victorian art deco style. It had two load-bearing double-flange wheels, of which one was driven by a rotary steam engine of the "La France" type. |
The concept was similar to that of the Lartigue Monorail: The load-bearing rail was installed on top of wooden A-frames. 1,346 mm (4 feet 5-inch) below there were two guide-rails for balancing the vehicle. The load-bearing wheels had a diameter of 711 mm (28-inch). The boiler was similar to that of conventional steam engines: it was 6,400 mm (21 feet) long with a diameter of 863 mm (34 inch). The driver's cabin was at the rear end, and just below there were two water tanks with coal heaped behind them. |
A modified version of this demonstrator was exploited in 1878 on the Bradford & Foster Brook Railway in Pennsylvania. |
The Blue Ridge Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Tennessee, North Carolina, and South Carolina. It was formerly part of the CSX Huntington West Division. It became part of the CSX Florence Division on June 20, 2016. The line was originally owned by Clinchfield Railroad and runs from Erwin, Tennessee, to Spartanburg, South Carolina, for a total of 138.6 miles. At its north end it continues south from the Erwin Terminal Subdivision and at its south end it branches off onto the Belton Subdivision and the Spartanburg Subdivision. |
Banana messengers or fruit messengers were agents sent on US railroads to accompany shipments of bananas and other fruit. They were accorded special ticket rates, similar to those for railway employees and clergy, as late as the 1960s. The tickets were not honored on some premium trains. Reportedly, the reduced rate also applied to the return trip ("sans" bananas). |
The name was also used to refer to some cabooses. Described in IC 9650-9956, these were steel underframe drover's cabooses built between 1897 and 1913, and reclassified as banana messengers sometime between 1955 and 1963. The last five were scrapped or sold between 1963 and 1971. |
The Cambridge Railroad (also known as the Cambridge Horse Railroad) was the first street railway in the Boston, Massachusetts area, linking Harvard Square in Cambridge to Cambridge Street and Grove Street in Boston's West End, via Massachusetts Avenue, Main Street and the West Boston Bridge. |
The company was chartered and incorporated May 25, 1853, and started construction September 1, 1855. The horsecar line opened between West Cedar Street (just east of Charles Street) and Central Square on March 26, 1856. Extensions opened in April to Brattle House in Brattle Square and to Revere House in Bowdoin Square. A further extension to Mount Auburn Cemetery opened soon after, as did a branch to Porter Square. The connecting Watertown Horse Railroad opened on April 27, 1857. The Porter Square branch was extended to the border of West Cambridge (now Arlington); there it met the West Cambridge Horse Railroad, which opened on June 13, 1859. |
From its incorporation, the Cambridge Railroad was leased to the Union Railroad for 50 years, later passing under control of the West End Street Railway and the Boston Elevated Railway. The Red Line subway, opened March 23, 1912, now travels this route mostly underground, though the streetcar tracks remained for a while, possibly used by East Boston Tunnel (now Blue Line) trains until 1924 to travel to repair yards. The Red Line still travels over the Longfellow Bridge, successor to the West Boston Bridge, on the surface. |
The line beat a rival company by buying secondhand cars from the Brooklyn City Railroad. For the first two months, no fares were charged, making the line very popular, with over 2000 passengers per day within a week. When it started to charge fares, the public was outraged, many calling for the franchises to be revoked. |
The American Refrigerator Transit Company (ART) was a St. Louis, Missouri-based private refrigerator car line established in 1881 by the Missouri Pacific and Wabash railroads. It is now a subsidiary of the Union Pacific Corporation. |
The Blue Ridge Railway was a 19th-century railroad in the U.S. state of South Carolina. It was originally chartered in 1852 as the Blue Ridge Railroad of South Carolina. Original plans were for a 195-mile line from Anderson, South Carolina, to Knoxville, Tennessee going through the mountains with as many as 13 tunnels including the incomplete Stumphouse Mountain Tunnel. |
By 1859, the railroad had built between Anderson and West Union, South Carolina and substantial work on several tunnels had started. However, with the outbreak of the Civil War, no further work was ever completed on the tunnels despite efforts after the war, including one by the Black Diamond Railroad. A final extension from West Union to Walhalla, South Carolina at the urging of the Town Council and local citizens saw the first train arrive November 14, 1877, but no more track would ever be laid along the alignment up Stumphouse Mountain. In 1880, the Columbia and Greenville Railroad acquired the of track that had been laid. In 1901 the Southern Railway, successor to the Columbia and Greenville, split out the line as the Blue Ridge Railway. |
The Southern leased the Blue Ridge to subsidiary Carolina and Northwestern Railway on July 1, 1951, and eventually merged the company. Passenger service from Belton, South Carolina, through Anderson to Walhalla ended by the latter part of 1951. |
Block register territory (BRT) is a designation applied to some lightly used segments of railroad track in the United States. In these areas, trains are only authorized to move into the territory when a special type of log book is filled out correctly. BRT is described in the General Code of Operating Rules (GCOR) as Rule 6.15. A standard block register has rows divided into five columns: |
The first four columns of the register are filled out upon entering the block. When the track is exited, the last column is filled out and the entire entry is crossed out. |
Generally, only one train can occupy block register territory at a time. Additional trains are only allowed to occupy the block if the operator of the incoming train has contacted all of the other employees named in the open entries in the block register. Train movements are then made at restricted speed, a low enough speed that the train could stop within half the distance between it and an oncoming train or obstacle. |
The Cayuga and Susquehanna Railroad was a railroad in the state of New York, in the United States. Its line ran from Ithaca, New York to Owego, New York. It was founded in 1829 and began operations in 1834. The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad (Lackawanna) leased the company in 1855 but it remained in existence as a non-operating subsidiary. It was conveyed to Conrail on the bankruptcy of the Erie Lackawanna Railway, successor to the Lackawanna, in 1976. |
The railroad was chartered on January 28, 1828, as the Ithaca and Owego Railroad. It was the third railroad built in North America, and the longest of the three. It connected the town of Ithaca, on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake with the town of Owego on the Susquehanna River to the south. By 1818 the Cayuga–Seneca Canal connected the Erie Canal to the north end of Cayuga Lake. The Ithaca and Owego was planned to provide a missing link connecting the Erie Canal and the Great Lakes to the coal fields of Pennsylvania and the Chesapeake Bay. |
Little construction was done until the Chemung Canal was built along a similar course in 1833 via Seneca Lake and Elmira, diverting trade from Ithaca and Owego. At this point construction was started and the work was completed by 1834. The chief engineer for the construction was John Randel Jr. |
The track was standard gauge strap-iron rails— strips of cast iron attached to wooden rails. The line covered a distance of approximately . It comprised an ascent from Cayuga Lake of in followed by a descent to Owego of . Two inclined planes accomplished the lift from Ithaca, one driven by a stationary engine and the second by a horse-drawn windlass. Originally the cars were pulled by horse power, An engine, "The Pioneer", built by Walter McQueen of Albany, was purchased in 1840. This engine was in service for a few years before crashing through a bridge killing the engineer and fireman, and the railroad returned to horse power. |
In 1842 the railroad defaulted on its debts, and was foreclosed and sold to Henry Yates and Archibald McIntyre who reorganized the company as the Cayuga and Susquehanna Railroad. At this time the track was changed to broad gauge. The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad leased the company in 1855 and operated the line thereafter as part of its Cayuga Division. The DL&W reconstructed the line with "heavy T rails" cand converted it back to standard gauge, facilitating a connection to the Erie in Owego. |
In 1956 the physical right-of-way was abandoned; it would later be incorporated into the South Hill Recreation Way in Ithaca. |
The company remained in existence as a non-operating subsidiary through the merger with the Erie Railroad in 1960 to form the Erie Lackawanna Railway. It was conveyed to Conrail in 1976 on the Erie Lackawanna's bankruptcy. |
The Bruceton Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. State of Tennessee. The line runs from Nashville, Tennessee, to Camden, Tennessee, for a total of . At its east end the line continues west from the Nashville Terminal Subdivision and at its west end the line continues west as the Memphis Subdivision. |
The Buffalo Subdivision is a railroad line owned by CSX Transportation in the U.S. State of West Virginia. It was formerly part of the CSX Huntington East Division. It became part of the CSX Florence Division on June 20, 2016. The line runs from Man, West Virginia, to Lorado, West Virginia, for a total of 16.6 miles. At its south end it continues north from the Logan Subdivision and at its north end the track comes to an end. |
The Beech Grove Shops is a railway maintenance facility in Beech Grove, Indiana, outside Indianapolis. Beech Grove is Amtrak's primary maintenance facility. It also contains a very large freight yard. |
The shops were originally constructed in 1904–1908 by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway (the "Big Four"), servicing a network stretching across the Midwest into Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio. The facility was used as the company's repair shop for steam locomotives and passenger and freight cars. |
The Big Four was acquired by the New York Central Railroad (NYC) in 1906, but operated as an independent business until it was formally merged with its owner in 1922. The facility passed to Penn Central Transportation in 1968 when the NYC merged with the Pennsylvania Railroad. Penn Central declared bankruptcy in 1970. Amtrak purchased the facility from the bankrupt Penn Central in 1975. |
On September 20, 2002, an F2 tornado hit the shops, damaging Coach Shop 3, which was going to be torn down after the tornado; it had been used to overhaul Superliner passenger cars until 2000. |
The Camden Line is a MARC commuter rail line that runs for between Union Station, Washington, D.C., and Camden Station, Baltimore, Maryland, over the CSX Capital Subdivision, and Baltimore Terminal Subdivision. It is one of the oldest commuter lines in the United States still in operation. The Baltimore & Ohio Railroad began running commuter service from Baltimore to Ellicott City over part of the current line's trackage on May 24, 1830, and the line was extended to Washington on August 25, 1835. The Camden Line is the shortest MARC line and along with the Brunswick Line, is the successor to commuter services operated by the B&O. , the Camden Line is a weekday-only service. |
The American Railway Association (ARA) was an industry trade group representing railroads in the United States. The organization had its inception in meetings of General Managers and ranking railroad operating officials known as Time Table Conventions, the first of which was held on October 1, 1872, at Louisville, Kentucky. In 1875, the group changed its name to General Time Convention and in October 1892, to American Railway Association. In January 1919, ten separate groups of operating officers were amalgamated with the association and carried on their activities as divisions, sections or committees of the larger group. |
On October 12, 1934, the ARA ceased to exist, having joined with several other railroad industry trade groups to merge into the Association of American Railroads. |
The Louisiana Railroad Bridge carries a single track rail line across the Mississippi River between Louisiana, Missouri and Pike County, Illinois. Built by the Chicago and Alton Railroad, the structure is currently owned by the Kansas City Southern Railway following a series of sales and consolidation in the railroad industry. |
A predecessor of this bridge was opened for service in 1873 as one of the first 15 bridges across the Mississippi River. The current structure opened to traffic in 1898, having been fully reconstructed on the original piers from the 1873 bridge. When it opened, the 444 foot swing span was the longest swing span in the nation. |
The bridge's distinctive appearance is derived from the variety of truss types installed as different spans were replaced over time. The most recent span replacement occurred in 1945, when three new spans were installed. |
In its closed position, the bridge provides a vertical clearance of 15.8 feet above the normal pool for this section of the Mississippi River. |
The Union Railroad Clairton Bridge, commonly known as the Clairton Coke Works Bridge, is a truss bridge that formerly carried traffic between Clairton, Pennsylvania and Lincoln, Pennsylvania for the Pennsylvania Union Railroad which is owned and operated by Transtar, Inc., a subsidiary of the United States Steel Corporation. The structure, which featured a single track, has been out of service since the 1970s; rail traffic was rerouted to the US Steel Clairton Works as the steel industry began to decline. The bridge is currently slated to become part of the Montour Trail, one of many current Pittsburgh-area bike trails projects. |
Canadian Pacific Camden Place Rail Bridge is a truss bridge that spans the Mississippi River in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This bridge is the official end of the navigable channel for river traffic. It was built in 1905 by the Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railway. In 1977, the bridge was modified to allow higher clearance under the center span. This was done by replacing the deck truss span with a shallower girder span. It is the main line crossing of the Mississippi River for the Canadian Pacific Railway transcontinental (Soo Line Railroad) line. |
The Rock Island Railroad Bridge is BNSF Railway's bridge across the Columbia River, at Rock Island, Washington. The structure consists of one through truss, one deck truss, and an approach trestle. |
The bridge was originally built in 1892 for the Great Northern Railway and was the first bridge to span the Columbia River. The site was chosen at Rock Island, Washington for being the shortest distance between the banks of the Columbia River in Washington state. In 1925, it was decided to strengthen the main span in anticipation of increased traffic and heavier trains by reinforcing the structure with an additional outside truss frame. |
The Metropolis Bridge is a railroad bridge which spans the Ohio River at Metropolis, Illinois. Originally built for the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad, construction began in 1914 under the direction of engineer Ralph Modjeski. |
The bridge consists of the following: (from north to south) |
Total length of the bridge is . The largest span stretches , and remains the longest pin-connected simple through truss span in the world. Cost of the bridge when built was $4,000,000. (USD) |
Not long after completion in 1917, ownership of the bridge was passed on to the Paducah and Illinois Railroad, a newly formed railroad jointly owned by the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad and Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis Railway. In 1925, the Illinois Central Railroad purchased a 1/3 share of the Paducah and Illinois Railroad, and assumed operations and maintenance, as the bridge served as an important link in their newly completed Edgewood-Fulton Cutoff route. |
As of 2013, the bridge is still owned by the Paducah and Illinois Railroad, with operations managed by the Canadian National Railway and bridge maintenance/inspection managed by BNSF Railway, where it continues to see heavy use. |
The Panhandle Bridge (officially the Monongahela River Bridge) carries two rail lines of the Port Authority "T" line across the Monongahela River in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The name comes from Pennsylvania Railroad subsidiary Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railroad, also known as the Panhandle Route, which operated over the bridge. |
The basic structure was built in 1903, and was the third railroad bridge on the site since 1863. It was raised in 1912-14 as part of a grade separation project. The bridge's function was to carry Panhandle Route passenger, mail and express trains from Pennsylvania Station in Pittsburgh, with a tunnel in between the station and the bridge. Pennsy Panhandle freight trains utilized the Ohio Connecting Bridge slightly downstream on the Ohio River, or went the long way around the West Virginia Panhandle via Conway, Pennsylvania. |
Rail traffic over the Panhandle Bridge declined as passenger trains were discontinued, and Amtrak became the only regular user of the bridge from 1971 to 1979, when the New York-St. Louis-Kansas City "National Limited" was discontinued on October 1 of that year. As PRR successor Conrail had no use for the bridge and the restrictive downtown tunnel, it was sold to the Port Authority, who rebuilt the bridge beginning in 1982 as part of the downtown light rail subway project, which removed trolleys from downtown streets and the Smithfield Street Bridge. PAT (as the Port Authority system was known at the time) light rail cars began using the bridge on July 7, 1985. |
The Keokuk Bridge, also known as the Keokuk Municipal Bridge, is a double-deck, single-track railway and highway bridge across the Mississippi River in the United States between Keokuk, Iowa, and Hamilton, Illinois, just downstream of Mississippi Lock and Dam number 19. It was designed by Ralph Modjeski and constructed 1915–1916 on the piers of its predecessor that was constructed in 1869–1871. |
Following the completion of the Keokuk-Hamilton Bridge, the upper deck of this bridge, on the Keokuk side, was converted to an observation deck to view the nearby lock and dam; this deck is no longer used for road traffic, but the lower deck is still used for rail traffic. The bridge was originally owned by the Keokuk & Hamilton Bridge Company, but following financial problems in the 1940s, the bridge was given to the City of Keokuk in late 1948. |
The bridge was originally the western terminus of the Toledo, Peoria & Western Railroad. Today, it serves the Keokuk Junction Railway with occasional train crossings for interconnection and river terminal services. Only the Keokuk side of the highway bridge has been converted, the bridge's upper highway deck is abandoned. The river traffic (barges and boats) have the right-of-way, so the swing section remains open until a train needs to cross the river. |
On the Illinois side of the bridge, two precast concrete barriers prevent auto traffic from driving on to the old highway section. |
The bridge was documented as survey number IA-3 by the Historic American Engineering Record, archived in the Library of Congress. |
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