Light Rail?/Aban/Cumberland Valley 1916, 43-Arch Bridge in Harrisburg, PA

(Bridge Hunter, Historic Bridges, 3D Satellite)

Just down stream is another historic concrete arch bridge. ConRail abandoned this bridge because they favored the P&R bridge.

Seamond Roberts posted

It is a good thing that reinforced concrete structures are expensive to tear down and remove because this bridge is now being considered for a light rail service.

Adventures and Pondering has more information about the five bridges that crossed here (3 wood, 1 iron and the current concrete one) and Explore PA History describes the Cumberland Valley.

Update:  The bridge in the postcard doesn't look like this.

Michael Froio Photography posted
The Pennsylvania Railroad’s strategic Cumberland Valley Bridge spanned the Susquehanna to provide the PRR with Main Line connections to the Cumberland Valley Line to Hagerstown, the York Haven Line, and the Harrisburg passenger terminal. The existing bridge is the last of five such spans at this location dating as far back as 1839. The current bridge was completed in 1916 and consists of 45 reinforced concrete arch spans that carried two main tracks between State interlocking and Lemoyne Junction.

John Rose I remember my Uncle Ray (who worked for the railroad in the Enola diesel shop) taking us out on the river in his boat. One time we saw 3 PC or CR E44's running light over the bridge toward Harrisburg. I believe I heard by that time most freight was routed over the Rockville bridge further north and the Cumberland Valley bridge was mostly locomotive moves.
Mike Froio John I think that was always the case. Most freight came up the Enola Low Grade from Columbia. It wasn’t until the Shocks Mills Bridge failed that they started sending big freights over the CV until the Bridge was repaired.
William Frederick They had to put in a new leg to the wye on the HBG side so you could go east. If I remember right it was restricted to 5 mph because it was so sharp.. We would pull east out of Enola to clear LEMO then back up toward Camp Hill then go over the bridge.

Mike Froio shared
James Ridgway Jr. Woefully underused for the last 40+ years. Only used to turn engines at HBG station. Penn Central built wye to replace Shock’s Mills bridge until it was rebuilt after Agnes. Various commuter proposals would see it reactivated; Don’t hold your breath...
John Laughner I better go back and look at my pictures I took of the last circus train that I thought used that bridge in 2016. They held up the train for quite a while to turn around some engines and in the interim a double stack went by. What is confusing me?
Richard D. Zink Due to the demands of traffic disruption, due to Agnes, they put a complete Wye in at the passenger station ( East Leg). Amtrak has left enough track on the bridge [satellite] to enable a passenger train to be turned, and that track and wye still exists by the Harrisburg Hospital and out onto the East end of the bridge. So .. maybe they used that to turn the power.
Raymond Smith John Laughner, Go up to the Bridges cafeteria in the hospital on the 11th floor. The tracks are gone except a short distance on the east shore used for a wye. The circus train you saw was on the Reading Bridge which is still used. The tracks were torn up for quite some time.

A Flickr photo of the upstream side
This is one of several bridges described by Sean Adams.

Because of the high river level, this photo is worth saving. Note the NS/P&R bridge peaking over the top of this bridge in front of the locomotive.

Taylor Rush shared his post
A Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train rolls over what I believe is the Cumberland Valley Railroad Bridge over the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The massive 43 segmental arch bridge is made of concrete and was built in 1916. Components of the bridge it replaced were incorporated into the construction, mainly the original stone abutments have been encased in the new concrete structure. While currently out of service, there are plans for it to once again see commuter rail traffic.
Stephen Bailey: If that's the Susquehanna River, it's during a big flood.

Note the slanted edge of on the upstream side of the piers. That means they have problems with ice flows on this river. This is also a nice view of the NS/P&R bridge.

Larry Stultz commented on Mike's share

In 1996, ice flows tore some spans out of the Walnut Street Bridge, which was a trail bridge. Some are arguing that this bridge should be turned into a trail bridge.

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And I fell down the YouTube rabbit hole.
(new window)  This happened in 1938.