Aban/CN/IC/C&IW Rall Bascule Bridge over Collateral Channel

(Bridge Hunter, Historic Bridges, Satellite, Bird's Eye View)

C&IW = Chicago & Illinois Western

ChiLandmarks has two photos and the text:

The Chicago & Illinois Western Railway Bridge is a rare-surviving example of a patented bridge design by Theodor Rall. Although this bridge type was invented by Rall, the patent was held by the contractor, Strobel Steel Construction Company of Chicago. The Rall type was one of the designs most frequently used by the railroads in the early twentieth century and is significant for combining the bascule bridge technologies of both rolling and trunnion motion. The bridge is a single track, single-leaf bascule span which runs on an east-west axis over a slip in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. This low-profile bridge is supported by three unevenly-spaced piers made from reinforced concrete. Visible struts are located on the sides of the bridge along with a trunnion, which when engaged by an electric motor, pulls the leaf up and rolls it back wards along the horizontal track girders. Today, the bridge's mechanism has been disabled and it remains in fixed position.

2

This bridge over the Collateral Channel is another bridge to nowhere, and it is locked down. What little track that is left has had the turnout with the IC removed just east of the bridge. But as Nathan Holth in Historic Bridges commented, this Theodor Rall design is rare. It is one of the eleven bridges on the Historic Chicago Railroad Bridges list.

David Daruszka commented on Bill Molony's posting
This unique Rall lift bridge was built by the
C&IW over a slip of the Sanitary Canal.
It is a Chicago landmark.

Satellite

I copied the satellite image to record that at least one industry is still using barges on this canal slip. The bridge is near the south end of the channel. (Update: research on the Collateral Channel indicates that these barges are just being stored here. There are plans to turn the channel into a park because the stagnate water stinks when there is no wind to blow the smell away. Will they leave the bridge over the park as a monument to Chicago's industrial past?)

Update:
Edward Kwiatkowski posted a picture that includes the north side of this bridge.

"From some web research, I learned that what makes this bridge unique is that it rolls back a short distance as it cantilevers upward." [ChiLandmarks]

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