St. Joe Bridge Changeover

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MQT1223
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St. Joe Bridge Changeover

Unread post by MQT1223 »

I recently acquired a bunch of Railway Gazette issues that had been digitized for me, and the first issue is from 1904. One of the articles was on the construction of the St. Joe Swing Bridge.

During the construction the pre-existing fixed span was left in place and the new bridge was built in its current position, but with the bridge in the open position and the fixed bridge running through the center of the swing bridge.

When it was time to cut over to the new bridge, I'm assuming the PM had to temporarily halt through traffic to St. Joe and beyond that came from the north and vise versa for anything coming from the south. Would the PM have cancelled these trains outright, or found an alternative route that utilized temporary trackage rights?
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Saturnalia
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Re: St. Joe Bridge Changeover

Unread post by Saturnalia »

MQT1223 wrote:I recently acquired a bunch of Railway Gazette issues that had been digitized for me, and the first issue is from 1904. One of the articles was on the construction of the St. Joe Swing Bridge.

During the construction the pre-existing fixed span was left in place and the new bridge was built in its current position, but with the bridge in the open position and the fixed bridge running through the center of the swing bridge.

When it was time to cut over to the new bridge, I'm assuming the PM had to temporarily halt through traffic to St. Joe and beyond that came from the north and vise versa for anything coming from the south. Would the PM have cancelled these trains outright, or found an alternative route that utilized temporary trackage rights?
I know you and I already tossed theories ourselves, but I'll post my thoughts for this discussion for the forum :wink:

My theory is that they probably cancelled certain passenger trains running during the shutdown and accommodated passengers on other runs before or after. Freight was probably just run after. My suspicion is that anybody who really needed a particular through train on that particular day would just have to go via a different line, this being 1904.

Like bridge replacements today, it seems to be one of those things the railroads just bite it and close for, while throwing a ton of men and machines at it to get it reopened ASAP.
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