railroad bridge

June 25, 2015

Northern Lights over the Midwest’s High Bridge

Several years ago you folks may remember I headed up to Alaska in February with the goal of catching the Northern Lights. While I did in fact see them, the effect was not quite as brilliant as I’d hoped. Fast forward to this week, when a powerful geomagnetic storm erupted on the sun, sending charged particles toward our atmosphere and lighting up the sky. I happened to be in Minnesota at the time with my husband, and along with our guide, Midwest railfan photographer extraordinaire Nick Benson, we headed over to the Arcola High Bridge to catch the lights. According...

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June 2, 2015

Tuesday Tour of the New Haven Line: Devon Transfer

Giving Devon Transfer its own Tuesday Tour post may be a little bit of a joke, considering it is only a temporary station, nonetheless it is certainly worth a few minutes to check out. Intended to be in place for only six months, the transfer station facilitates passengers getting from the main New Haven Line over to the Waterbury Branch while Track 3 is currently out of service on the Devon Bridge for work. The v-shaped platform at Devon Transfer skirts the far end of the wye, allowing riders to essentially walk from the New Haven main line right over...

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December 19, 2014

Bridges of Metro-North: The Harlem River Lift Bridge

Throughout the entire Metro-North system there are an array of movable bridges – bridges which as of recently seem to be a thorn in the rail system’s side. Much of the infrastructure on these bridges are old and prone to issues. Thankfully, updates are going on to get these bridges in better working order, and we’ll be taking visits to some of the more prominent bridges in the system in the next few weeks. Today we feature the busiest bridge on the entire system, the Harlem River Lift Bridge. At sixty years old the bridge is not nearly as old...

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March 23, 2013

Remembering the Upper Harlem Division, Part 2

In Wednesday’s post regarding the Upper Harlem, we took a look at some of the first abandoned stations on the route, and remembered the Harlem Valley Transportation Association that worked diligently to prevent the abandonment of the Upper Harlem. When passenger service was eliminated north of Dover Plains, the HVTA did not roll over and die – they instead pushed for a restoration of passenger service. Although difficult, they had to reevaluate their goals – retaining passenger service all the way to Chatham was becoming less and less realistic. By the late ’70s, the HVTA’s goal was to at least...

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December 25, 2012

Tuesday Tour of the Hudson Line: Poughkeepsie

1890 photo of the previous Poughkeepsie station. Note that this station was on the west side of the tracks, while today’s station was constructed on the east side of the tracks. 1960 photo of Poughkeepsie station, not obstructed by Route 9 which now runs above the station’s front parking area. Today we’ve arrived at the end of the line – both literally and figuratively. Today’s station tour is of Poughkeepsie, the northern terminus of Metro-North’s Hudson Line, and the final station on our Hudson Line tour. In fact, it is the final Metro-North station to be featured here. Over the...

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August 17, 2012

Thoughts on Minneapolis’ Stone Arch Bridge, and the Hiawatha Line’s Downtown East – Metrodome station

Early 1900’s panoramic view of the Stone Arch Bridge Several weeks ago when I interviewed Metro-North’s president, a few people (especially @CapnTransit on twitter) called attention to the question about Millerton – and specifically the “how do you de-map a rail trail,” comment that Mr. Permut made. It is an interesting point – in some ways a rail trail preserves a former railroad’s Right of Way, but the restoration of a rail line from a rail trail is exceedingly rare. Railroad bridges that are converted to rail-trail use are even more problematic. Bridges are not cheap to build – and...