Ashton Viaduct, Cumberland-Lincoln, RI

The Ashton Viaduct crossing the Blackstone River

Usually a bridge like this has a lot of history behind it, but I can't even get a definite idea of its name. Some places call it the Ashton Bridge, some the Ashton Viaduct. I imagine it was associated with the nearby (like, if I turn to my right 90 degrees, it's right there) Ashton Village, which was once a thriving mill, so it must be at least a hundred years old, but... no information on how old it is.

I was biking on the Blackstone Valley Bikeway which stretches from Worcester, Massachusetts through to Cumberland, Rhode Island. I was just wanting to see how far I could get, maybe to where I grew up near Uxbridge, Mass., before we moved to New Hampshire. The Blackstone Valley was home.

Yeah, I knew the viaduct would be along the way, but still. I didn't come just for the bridge. Honestly.

The Ashton Mill

Told ya the mill was close.

Viaduct & bike bridge

The Ashton Viaduct is a five span open spandrel arch bridge crossing the Blackstone River, a river once called the most polluted river in the country with respect to toxic sediments, being used as it was as the industrial toilet for mills and factories from Worcester to Woonsocket. It is today still filled with pollutants. In that it shares a fate with the Housatonic River here in Connecticut -- enjoy at your own risk.

Neither river is likely to ever fully recover.

Not the Albion Bridge

Further along the bikeway, I found a pony truss bridge crossing the river. It looked in great condition, better than I'd ever seen one from the age of iron bridges. It didn't look to be one of the Berlin Iron Bridge Company's bridges -- most of theirs are lenticular.

Boston Bridge Works Builders

These bridges were built by the Boston Bridge Works... at least originally.

Turns out that Rhode Island  replaced the bridge, then bolted on parts of the old bridge so it would keep some of its old character. According to the contractor, Gordon R. Archibald Inc Civil Engineering,

To maintain the historic value of this river crossing, Gordon R. Archibald, Inc. developed the innovative concept of 'aesthetic rehabilitation.' Under this concept, the trusses were refurbished and placed astride a new, two-dimensional steel grid superstructure. The steel grid carries all of the new superstructure and vehicular loadings, leaving the trusses to carry only the weight of and loadings on the sidewalks. In this way, the reconstructed bridge can carry contemporary traffic loadings, while its 19th-century visual quality is preserved for future generations.

So I'm not sure how I feel about that. I guess it's good that they didn't just replace it with a slab of steel and concrete. They replaced it with a slab of steel and concrete and then put it in a dress.

Contoocook Railroad Bridge, Contoocook, NH

Contoocook Covered Bridge

The Contoocook Covered Bridge, crossing the Contoocook River in the Contoocook village part of Hopkinton, New Hampshire, bills itself as the "oldest surviving covered railroad bridge in the world". That's a lot of qualifications, but it's still an impressive piece of covered bridge history.

Constructed in 1889 on the piers of an earlier bridge, it was built at a time when New England was turning to iron bridges, such as those built by the famous Berlin Iron Bridge Company. Its relative newness could be responsible for its longevity, maybe.

This bridge was probably designed by the Boston & Maine Railroad engineer Jonathan Parker Snow and built by carpenter David Hazelton. The B&M railroad used wooden bridges long after most other railroads had moved to iron.

Tradition. It's New England!

Double Town lattice

The Contoocook covered railroad bridge sports a rather unique double Town lattice construction, with a second lattice bolted to the outside of the first. This probably helped take the weight of trains as they came through to the nearby depot. I have not seen that in any other covered bridge, but Wikipedia claims it wasn't uncommon in northern New England and a few other examples survive to this day.

This bridge was used as a working railroad bridge to 1962, weathering a number of disasters, including the 1938 hurricane that nearly wiped out Providence, Rhode Island. Between 1962 and 1990 it was used as a warehouse. In 2006, the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges paid for some necessary upgrades, and in 2010 the NH Department of Transportation modernized the lighting and fire suppression system -- you can see the red fire alarm button midway down the bridge wall in the picture above.

Portal to Contoocook Covered Bridge

I used to live twenty miles from this bridge when I was a kid, but I didn't know it even existed until a couple weeks ago. Used to ride to Hopkinton on my bike a lot after they built this really nice bike path that follows Interstate 89 north. But it would have been being used as a warehouse back then, anyway. The pictures on the Library of Congress website (which is down at the moment, so no links) show it filled with junk. Now it stands as the centerpiece and symbol of Contoocook village.

The bridge isn't hard to get to; if you're anywhere in the Concord, NH area, get to I-89, go north to route 127 and follow the road into Contoocook. There is parking available both at the adjoining depot and a restaurant on the other end of the bridge.

Now starring in The Dark Knight Rises: The Queensboro Bridge

Chrysler Building & Queensboro/59th Street Bridge

I hadn't been to the top of the Empire State Building since I was a kid, and my daughter had never been, so Wednesday we made the trip. Even though the the air was hazy with humidity, it was a great view and I got some wonderful pictures of the lower Manhattan bridges before the thunderstorms hit.

Closest to us was the Ed Koch Queensboro/59th Street Bridge, looking from this height like a kid's popsicle stick bridge.

This morning I went to see the new Batman movie, the Dark Knight Rises, in which many of the bridges of Manhattan play a pivotal role -- and the Queensboro Bridge, most of all. I'm not going to spoil the movie, but if you've been a fan of Manhattan's bridges, you'll probably enjoy the focus on them in the movie.

Except -- one tiny, tiny thing. They moved the bridge. They moved the bridge. In actual real Manhattan, the bridge is midtown, connecting the island with Queens. In the movie's climactic scene, the bridge has apparently replaced the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, Staten Island has disappeared entirely, and the Marine Parkway Bridge now connects to Manhattan. Or something. And is now reddish instead of gray.

When I got home I checked a NYC map just to be sure I wasn't crazy, but I was right. They moved the bridge.

Didn't they think anyone would notice?

Found a story with some good additional links about the filming on the Queensboro Bridge last autumn.

Railroad bridges, Hooksett, NH

Baltimore truss railroad bridge

I wasn't going to write this picture up. There's nothing particularly historical about this bridge. I didn't even know this bridge existed.

I'm on vacation, and I'd made a promise to visit my parents graves in Concord, New Hampshire, at some point during my week off. My dad would never, ever pay a toll if he could avoid it, and particularly on I-93 between Manchester and Concord. He'd always take the back road, Route 3A, through Hooksett and Bow and into Concord, where we lived.

That's how we kids were brought up. So I was toodling along on 3A, which follows the Merrimack River, just casually looking over now and again because it's a beautiful river and it was my river growing up. Through the trees, I saw an old iron railroad bridge and figured I'd better stop by.

I didn't recognize the truss design; I looked it up when I got home and saw it was a "Baltimore truss". The railroad bridges here in Connecticut all seem to be Pratt truss, so that was new.

This closed-off railroad bridge crosses the Merrimack nearly parallel to the Baltimore truss bridge. This one appears to be a three span Pratt truss bridge with extra bracing. Or it could be a Warren truss. I don't know. The cool thing is that these bridges, right next to each other, were made using entirely different designs.

Lots of people seem to have photographed these bridges (add me to that list) and/or jumped from them, but I'm not able to find any information about them online.

Just... back roads New Hampshire, I guess.

Mid-Hudson Bridge, Poughkeepsie-Highland, NY

Franklin D. Roosevelt Mid-Hudson Bridge from Walkway Over the Hudson

I'm listening to Joseph Bertolozzi explain to me the various sounds the Mid-Hudson Bridge makes when you hit various parts of it with various kinds of hammers and mallets. This is the "album only" track from his 2009 album "Bridge Music", percussion music composed and played solely with sounds produced by the Mid-Hudson Bridge.

Bridge Music

You can hear this music on the bridge itself at the various listening stations, or on the radio.

Mid-Hudson Bridge and Walkway Over the Hudson

Because there were no fixed bridges across the Hudson south of Albany at the time, the Mid-Hudson Bridge   between Poughkeepsie and Highland was proposed in 1923 and opened in 1930 to fill a desperate need for road access. Then-governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, who grew up in nearby Hyde Park, was on hand for the opening of the bridge which would, in 1994, be renamed after him.

Detail of the underside of the bridge

The bridge is 3,000 feet long and rises 135 feet above the Hudson. It carries state routes 55 and 44 over the river, and the toll is $1.50 heading east. I didn't have to pay because I took my bike this time.

The pedestrian walkway on the north side is part of a loop trail that connects with the linear park on the old Poughkeepsie Railroad Bridge, now known as the Walkway Over the Hudson, and the topic of another post. Plans are to eventually connect this loop trail -- about three miles -- with the Dutchess County Rail Trail system.

The cable stays on the west end of the bridge

Parking is available at both ends of the Walkway Over the Hudson, with easy access to both the bridges. The pictures from ground level, below the bridges, were at the end of Mile Hill Road, which leads to a small isolated riverfront community.

If you're on a bicycle, you really have to respect roads called Long Hill Road, Mile Hill Road and so on, because... they aren't lying. Mile Hill Road would have been a fun descent if I were any sort of fan of screaming down strange curvy roads at 50 mph, but I have to admit I was clenching the brakes the whole way down. And I walked the bike the whole way back up, too. I'm not proud.

There were a couple more bridges I wanted to get this trip, but I'd been in the sun long enough for one day. The Rip Van Winkle Bridge is just going to have to wait.

Providence River Bridge/Iway Bridge, Providence, RI

Iway Bridge/Providence River Bridge

The  Providence River  Bridge in Providence, Rhode Island is a network arch bridge -- first one I've seen live -- at the mouth of the Providence River at the northern tip of Narragansett Bay. It's apparently the widest network arch bridge in the world -- seven lanes of traffic across, plus room for pedestrians. It was part of a renovation project a few years back that moved the I-95/I-195 intersection from its old position in the middle of the city to its current spot behind the Fox Point hurricane barrier, which you can see in front of the bridge, on the right.

Also, my car ;-)

Piers for the old I-195 bridge still sit in the canal

The  Providence River  Bridge (also known as the Iway Bridge) was built by the Cardi Corporation at the Quonset Business Park in North Kingstown -- the jumping off point for the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge. Once completed, it was put onto barges and floated up the bay to Providence, where cranes put it in its final position. One of the properties of this sort of bridge is the way it puts no tension on the bridge abutments, so it needn't be built in place.

The History Channel featured the Providence River Bridge on an episode of "Mega Movers -- Really Big Bridges". They show the bridge moved the 15 miles from North Kingstown to Providence. They also figure out how they would move the Golden Gate Bridge... probably worth watching. A YouTube user filmed the barge and the bridge going past up the bay; I've embedded it above.

Point Street Bridge

Just on the other side of the Fox Point hurricane barrier, the cantilever truss Point Street Bridge connects the banks of the Providence River for pedestrians and local traffic.

Providence River Bridge from the Water Street Bridge

With the completion of the Iway, Providence turned a blighted area of ruined buildings and traffic into a beautiful riverside park, capped on one side by the Providence River Bridge and the Point Street Bridge, and on the other by a series of decorative bridges that cross the river canal. There's plenty of parking all over, should you visit. India Street goes off to India Point to the east of the bridge, and that leads to the multispan arch Washington Bridge. I didn't get a picture of it (I was headed out of the city when I saw it), but that just gives me reason to return to one of the most beautiful capital cities in New England.

Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge, Jamestown-Newport, RI

Claiborne Pell Newport Bridge from Naval Station Newport

I kinda suspected I'd find myself sneaking into the Navy base to get a picture of this bridge. This was the weekend of the America's Cup race in Narragansett Bay. I'd hoped that the America's Cup catamarans would be sailing up to and under this bridge, but the course went toward the Long Island Sound and not this way.

I still thought maybe I could get a picture of the boats with the bridge in the background, but after a few attempts at dealing with Sailing Week traffic, parking and tourists, I just gave up trying to fit the race into my pictures and went looking for the shot. Maps had shown that the best vantage point on Aquidneck Island would be from the naval base, and I didn't know their policy on letting tourists with no Navy business on base to take pictures.

So I parked a bit away and just walked on to the base (though not all the way to the guard station). Took the shots and left. But, damn. Those Navy folks sure like their boats.

Newport Bridge from Jamestown

The Pell Bridge is New England's longest suspension bridge. It has a Warren truss deck that rises up to 215 feet above Narragansett Bay. The two towers are an astonishing 400 feet high. You can see the towers of this bridge from the central rise of the Jamestown Verrazzano Bridge, which is kinda cool.

The toll is a walloping $4.00 in each direction. Not all bad news, though. One of the best views of this bridge is from the tollbooth, where the road curves around a cove. There is a rocky beach that sits too low to get the good picture. You'd have to take it from the car. I did not expect the view and didn't have my phone taking pictures from the dash. I got the picture above on my way off the island, and it's just... okay.

Pell bridge towers

CC-BY-SA-3.0/Matt H. Wade at Wikipedia

I also fell short on getting pictures of the cathedral-style towers as I crossed the bridge, so I am borrowing the shot from Wikipedia (with attribution!) just so I can point them out here. They utterly dwarf the traffic; I'd think they'd be happier if cars and trucks never sullied their pristine bridge.

It's hard to get a good picture of the bridge from some publicly accessible place. The east side of Conanicut(*) Island is probably the easiest place; there's lots of tourist and boating places. I just parked in a beachfront condo parking spot for the middle picture (actually a panorama of about a half dozen pictures). I parked in some marine supply shop's parking lot and walked into the Navy base for the top picture.

Newport is mostly interested in getting people to its shops and tourist attractions and not letting them hang around taking pictures of bridges. If you are interested in quaint shops and tourist attractions, Newport has you covered. 

(*) Connecticut and Conanicut sound so similar that they must be related... I thought... wrongly. Conanicut is named after Conanicus, a Narragansett Indian who gave permission for the English to use the island for grazing sheep. I'm betting he regretted that decision. Connecticut, on the other hand, is named for the Connecticut River, called "quinetucket" by the Algonquins.

The Algonquins