Tuesday, December 13, 2016

NWRR/IC/TC Bridge over Cumberland River in Nashville, TN

(Bridge Hunter, no Historic Bridges, Satellite)

These are two of the three pictures posted by Rick Smith with the comment:
Swing bridge of the former Tennessee Central Railroad, which was dissolved in bankruptcy in 1968. Location is in northwest Metropolitan Nashville and Davidson County TN, specifically the former unincorporated community of Bordeaux. This bridge, built during the early 1900s, had been the largest of all TC bridges and probably the only movable-span bridge of that road. The Illinois Central took over the TC segment between Nashville and Hopkinsville, KY, until the IC decided to unload this, in an effort to trim unprofitable lines, during the mid-to-late1970s. This segment currently is abandoned at point about 15 miles North-NW of this bridge (near Ashland City, TN), except for a portion now controlled by the DoD (U.S. Dept. of Defense), from Fort Campbell, KY to Hopkinsville.
This ancient bridge had been out of commission during the much of the 1980s and '90s due to a broken ring (bull gear), but has since been restored for operations by the Nashville and Western RR (NWRR).
The view shown is looking east from the west fixed span truss. Although I actually traversed by foot the entire bridge, including the timber trestle approach on the far side of the river, back during October 1967, I really did *not* care too much about walking onto that bridge 49 years later (today), which conveys movements perhaps only twice per week (round trips).
[photographed today, 2016-Dec-11]

1

2
On my 1928 RR Atlas, the route was still labelled "TC." On my 1973 atlas, it is labelled "ICG" between Nashville and Hopkinsville, KY. The TC route east of Nashville was acquired by Louisville & Nashville.

While looking for this bridge on a satellite image, I noticed Exxon Mobile Pipeline, three Colonial Pipeline facilities along the river, and several tank farms for oil companies. It also appears the NWRR serves a tank car to tank truck transloading facility. So I got curious and found a map of pipelines. Note that liquid has "accidents" and gas has "incidents." There have been one of each, but I don't know what the time frame is of this data.

npms.phmsa.dot.gov, select Tennessee and Davidson and turn on the other layers
Update:
Joseph Giunto posted
CSX's Bridge over the Cumberland River in Nashville.

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