Poughkeepsie Bridge

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Poughkeepsie Bridge
Poughkeepsie Bridge
Official name Poughkeepsie Bridge
Carries Poughkeepsie Bridge Company (railroad), and many successors including CNE, NH and PC, out of service since 1974
Crosses Hudson River
Locale Poughkeepsie, New York, Highland, New York
Maintained by Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge Company
Design Cantilever bridge
Longest span 6 x 525 ft (160 m)
Total length 6,772 ft (2064 m)
Width Single standard gauge (4 ft 8.5 in) track
Vertical clearance Deck truss, unlimited clearance
Opening date 1889

The Poughkeepsie Bridge (sometimes known as the "Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge" or the "Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge" is a steel Cantilever bridge single track railway bridge spanning the Hudson River between Poughkeepsie, New York on the east shore and Highland, New York on the west shore. It was completed in 1889 and went out of service in 1974.

Contents

[edit] History

Planning for a Hudson crossing bridge began before the Civil War. Over the years, many plans had been made for a fixed span across the Hudson River south of Albany to replace the numerous car float operations. One of the most persistent was originally chartered in 1868 as the Hudson Highland Suspension Bridge Company, and would have crossed from Anthony's Nose to Fort Clinton, now roughly the site of the Bear Mountain Bridge, which was never built.

The proposal that ended up being built first was this bridge. The Poughkeepsie Bridge Company was chartered in June 1871 to build the bridge, and J. Edgar Thomson of the Pennsylvania Railroad was persuaded to support the effort. Contracts were let to a firm called the American Bridge Company (not the company of the same name founded later) but the Panic of 1873 intervened and the scheme collapsed.

In 1886, the Manhattan Bridge Building Company was organized to finance the construction. Among the prominent backers was Henry Clay Frick, the coal tycoon and associate of Andrew Carnegie. The Union Bridge Company, of Athens, Pennsylvania which had completed the Michigan Central cantilever bridge at Niagara (see Niagara Cantilever Bridge), was subcontracted to build the Poughkeepsie structure. Dawson, Symmes and Usher were the foundation engineers, while John F. O'Rourke, P. P. Dickinson and Arthur B. Paine were the structural engineers. The bridge was designed by Charles Macdonald and AB Paine. As is typical for cantilever bridges, construction was carried out by constructing cribwork, masonry piers, towers, fixed sections on falsework, and finally cantilever sections, with the final cantilever interconnection spans (if used) floated out or raised with falsework.

The first train crossed the bridge on December 29, 1888.

[edit] Geography

Billy Name in front of Poughkeepsie Bridge. Name, a Poughkeepsie native, worked for the preservation of the bridge
Billy Name in front of Poughkeepsie Bridge. Name, a Poughkeepsie native, worked for the preservation of the bridge

The bridge remained the southernmost non car float rail crossing of the Hudson or related rivers until the opening of the Hell Gate Bridge in 1914 (which crosses the East River and thus does not actually provide access to the western shore of the Hudson).

The bridge was considered an engineering marvel of the day and has 6 main spans. Total length is 6747 feet including approaches. The deck is 212 feet above water. It is a multispan cantilever bridge, it has three river crossing cantilever spans of 525 feet; 2 anchor spans of 525 feet, 2,200 foot shore spans and a 2,654 approach span on the eastern shore, as the eastern shore is lower than the western shore which has bluffs in that area. It formed part of the most direct rail route between the industrial Northeastern states and the Midwestern and Western states.

It remained as the main Hudson River crossing south of Albany until the construction of the Bear Mountain Bridge in 1924. It was advertised as a way to avoid New York City congestion (see the Poughkeepsie Bridge Route article for more information). Due to the changes in ownership of railways, the bridge was nominally owned by many different lines, including Central New England Railway (CNE), New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad (NH), and Penn Central (PC) among others.

The bridge was strengthened in either 1906 or 1912 (sources vary), possibly by Ralph Modjeski, by adding a third line of trusses down the middle and by adding a central girder and additional interleaved columns, to safely handle the increase in weight of trains, as can be seen in this illustration from the Poughkeepsie Journal story archive.

Factors such as the decrease in manufacturing in the Northeast, improvements in the highway system, and increased maintenance costs made the bridge increasingly uneconomic in the 1960s and 1970s, leading to its closure in 1974 after it suffered a damaging decking fire and the decision was taken not to repair it.

[edit] Present and Future of the Bridge

In 1998, a nonprofit organization called Walkway Over the Hudson acquired the bridge, hoping to turn it into pedestrian walkway. Although as of April 2007 this has not occurred, Walkway, as its known, has received support from local residents, city, and state officials totaling about $1 million, plus forgiveness of $550,000 in taxes inhereted from the previous owners.[1] This is a far cry from the estimated $10-15 million required for the project, but Walkway leaders are hopeful.[2]

Today, the span is blocked off and used only to carry electric power lines and a small amount of telephone cable.


[edit] External links

[edit] Background information

[edit] Illustrations and images

[edit] Preservation efforts and historic register information

Crossings of the Hudson River
Upstream
Kingston-Rhinecliff Bridge
 Poughkeepsie Bridge
 Downstream
Mid-Hudson Bridge
U.S. National Register of Historic Places - (List of entries)

National Park Service . National Historic Landmarks . National Battlefields . National Historic Sites . National Historic Parks . National Memorials . National Monuments
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