Tuesday, September 5, 2023

1901 CSAO/Pennsy Point-No-Point Bridge over Passaic River at Kearny, NJ

(Bridge Hunter; no Historic Bridges; Satellite)

Sep 2021 Photo by Famartin via BridgeHunter, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)
[The Pulaski Skyway is in the background.]
Michael Froio Photography posted
Nice write up on the Point No Point moveable bridge replacement project, a project I’ll be working on for several years providing timelapse documentation and still imagery for Conrail Shared Assets. One of which is included here, when Cory Booker’s project specialist Joseph Sgroi, visited with officials from Conrail, CSX, Norfolk Southern, contractor Harms Brothers Construction, United Steelworkers Union Heavy and General Labor Local 472 members at the project site.
Politicians Get to the Point-No-Point: Conrail

May 2019 Photo by Geoff Hubbs via BridgeHunter

MichaelFroio
"The Point-No-Point bridge is a critical structure on Conrail Shared Assets North Jersey Division crossing the Passaic River in Kearny, NJ and is slated for replacement. The bridge was constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad on the Passaic Branch of the New York Bay Railroad (NYBRR) between 1900 and 1901 and features five deck-plate girder approach spans and one camelback Howe through-truss swing span on a center bearing. The NYBRR was conceived and constructed as part of the PRR’s wider terminal improvements program in conjunction with the company’s entry into the Port of New York, the nation’s undisputed commercial hub at the turn of the twentieth century. The NYBRR served the PRR’s two principal freight terminals in New York: Harsimus Cove Yard on the Hudson River and Greenville Yard on New York Bay. The bridge will be replaced by modern bascule type span, increasing the width of the navigational channel while providing the railroad with a modern and effecient span for its busy rail line."

Michael Froio Photography posted a different exposure
Point-No-Point moveable bridge, crossing the Passaic River. Point-No-Point was constructed by the Pennsylvania Railroad on the Passaic Branch of the New York Bay Railroad between 1900 and 1901 and features five deck-plate girder approach spans and one camelback Howe through-truss swing span on a center bearing. The NYBRR was conceived and constructed as part of the PRR’s wider terminal improvements program in conjunction with the company’s entry into the Port of New York, the nation’s undisputed commercial hub at the turn of the twentieth century. The NYBRR served the PRR’s two principal freight terminals in New York: Harsimus Cove Yard on the Hudson River and Greenville Yard on New York Bay. Work from a recent HAER documentation for National Park Service.
[Some comments discuss how the catenary "breaks" when the span has to swing.]

Street View,  Nov 2022

It currently takes seven workers and over five hours to operate the bridge. When it is replaced by a single-leaf bascule bridge, it will take five minutes and be controlled by a dispatcher. The cost is estimated at $212m and federal and state grants are helping with the funding for an all freight bridge. Currently, it opens just a handful of times a year. But the river "is a Superfund site, and remediation of it will involve dredging the riverbed, deepening its draft and allowing larger ships to sail through." So a significant increase in marine traffic is expected. [FreightWaves]

Joseph Flickr, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY-NC-SA)

USACE
 
River Rail Photo posted
A Picture Of Today's Conrail. CSX Train M421-26 was the right train at the right time crossing Conrail Shared Assets on Sunday, August 27, 2023 with CSXT 1976 (Conrail Heritage, ES44AC, GE) leading over the modern day version of the former "big railroad". At sunset, it is seen crossing the Point-No-Point camelback through truss bridge over the Passaic River from Newark to Kearny, New Jersey with the New York City skyline in the background. This bridge was opened in 1901 by the Pennsylvania Railroad as a freight bypass of its mainline and today serves Conrail Shared Assets trains. Projected to be competed in 2025, at a cost an estimated by Conrail officials as $212 million, it will not only provide a modern structure but also reduce the time for opening the bridge for marine traffic from over 5 hours to about 5 minutes. The Consolidated Rail Corporation was created on April 1, 1976 to bring together the passenger and freight service of 7 large railroad companies and their subsidiary corporations, and was ultimately privatized and purchased by CSX and Norfolk Southern in 1999, leaving the dual controlled Conrail Shared Assets to manage the sections kept separate to avoid giving one railroad an advantage in those areas. This locomotive is one of a series that CSX has started to release with a modern CSX painted cab and a "heritage" body, with the scheme of a predecessor railroad and numbered for the year that company began operating.
Full resolution pics and prints: https://www.riverrailphoto.com/csxspecialunits/e92039ff8
Jason Birkner: I seriously doubt it takes 5 hours to open a bridge. It didn't take that long back when it was built.
River Rail Photo: Jason Birkner Hi Jason, not sure why that is your reaction to this photo, but in this interview (and elsewhere) Ryan Hill reports this information. "Hill noted that not only does an opening of the bridge eat up more than five hours of productive time on the railroad, it also means 'we have to take seven employees off the normal course of their duties.'" https://www.freightwaves.com/.../120-plus-year-old-new...
 
FreightWaves
"The Point No Point Bridge from the Kearny side, looking toward Newark"
Currently, the bridge opens just a few times a year. But because of planned dredging operations, the bridge is expected to open often. "The type of bridge that will replace it is known as a single bascule single leaf design."

rtands
"A crossing of the Passaic River at Point-No-Point was originally built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in the early 1890s to bypass its main line and shorten the distance to its rail yard at Harsimus Cove."
[Three maps show the cutoff route.]
RailwayAge

njtpa, p18


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