1925 5th Street and 1911 NYC JM Bascule Bridges over Ashtabula River in Ashtabula, OH

Road: (Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; Satellite, 79+ photos)
Railroad: (Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; Flickrs: Todd, Greg; Satellite)

This bridge replaced a bobtail bridge in 1925.

Josh Schmid, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)
View from northwest

Josh Schmid, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)
Partially open bridge from northwest

When I searched for Ashtabula to check out what was left of the NYC/LS&MS ore docks, Google Maps offered the following as the "signature" photo for the town.

Harish Mukundan

This looked similar to a Strauss heel-trunnion bascule bridge design, but there were enough differences that I suspected it was designed by someone else and the differences avoided patent infringement. Sure enough, Bridge Hunter indicates the "Patent Engineer/Design" is Thomas Ellis Brown. And Historic Bridges indicates it is one of the few surviving Brown type bascule bridges left in the country, and the only one in Ohio.

Historic Bridges explains that the design of this bridge is a Brown Bascule Bridge. As far as I'm concerned, it is simply a variant of Strauss Trunnion design. So I labeled these notes as bridgeStrauss as well as bridgeRare. Historic Bridges provides a link to the 1922 patent, but I'm not going to read it to figure out why it qualifies as a different design.

Photo via Bridge Hunter

Photo taken by Michael Miller in December 2019

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

Photo via Bridge Hunter

Partially open bridge from northwest

Photo taken by Josh Schmid in September 2018

License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)

8:02 video with various views of the bridge and its surroundings. The lift starts at 3:12. I think the bridges in Chicagoland are faster. And it kept going up after both boats had passed underneath. At least it didn't go all of the way up.

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The railroad bridge may have been owned by a terminal railroad that allowed NYC, NKP and Pennsy to access the ore docks.

Carl Englund commented on a post
Also JM drawbridge over the Ashtabula River at Ashtabula, Ohio. Plaque states bridge was built for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern RR.
Hugh Guillaume Bridge at Ashtabula was not on the main line.

Movable Bridge News posted
Photo taken by Douglas Butler (Movable Bridge News) in 2016 a Strauss Heel Trunnion Railroad Bascule Bridge used by the Norfolk Southern Railroad is located in Ashtabula Harbor, Ohio.

This bridge is an early Strauss heel-trunnion design. And, unlike other early designs I have seen, this 1911 bridge has not been converted to Strauss' later design. (Update: The 1911 Bridge Hunter page for the Duwamish River Bridge was my source concerning Strauss' earlier design. )This early design has the machinery room on top of the movable span and the operating strut is fixed to the counterweight tower. By 1919, Strauss had moved the machinery room to the counterweight tower and fixed the operating strut to the movable span. Below is a closeup of the two bridges on the South Branch of the Chicago River that have the modern design. I highlighted the operating strut of the near bridge, which is closed, in red and the strut of the far bridge, which is open, in yellow. You can see that the strut comes out the back of the tower as the bridge is raised. That photo allows you to compare the modern design with the earlier design still used in this bridge.

20150513 1427, cropped plus Paint

In this earlier design, the strut moves into the span. And you can see the machinery house on top of the movable span.

Bridge Hunter plus Paint

Bridge Hunter plus Paint

Bridge Hunter plus Paint

Walter Gunter posted
N&S Drawbridge. Ashtabula harbor. N.E. Ohio.
Walter Gunter Worked as a Conrail brakeman in the mid 70s . We moved alot of coal & ore over it.
Mike Shinsky I was there this summer the yard is for mostly stone now.

Oquendo Productions posted
Lafe Staton: What camera?
Anthony Oquendo: Lafe Staton Sony A7iii
Anthony Oquendo shared

Walter Gunter posted three photos with the comment: "JM Drawbridge. N&S RxR. Ashtabula harbor, N.E.Ohio. 4/26/21. https://bridgehunter.com/oh/ashtabula/bh57496/"

1

2, cropped

3, cropped

Walter Gunter posted, cropped
Recreational boat traffic. At one time there was a ship building yard just upstream of this bridge that is recreational boat dockage now. It's in the up position most the boating season as there is very little rail traffic out of the harbor yards now. Most materials are moved by trucks now.
Operated remotely from a control center.
Ashtabula Harbor was a sleepy Lake Erie port until 1873, when competing railroads finally connected it to the steel mills of Pittsburgh and Youngstown, Ohio. Within two decades, it had become the greatest iron ore receiving port on the Great Lakes.

Walter commented on his post

Walter commented on his post

Walter commented on his post

Douglas Butler posted
Photo taken by Douglas Butler in 2016 JM Drawbridge used by the Norfolk Southern Railroad formally used by the Lakeshore & Michigan Southern Railroad in Ashtabula, Harbor, OH. Built in 1911 still remains in service, duplicated copy to the first Cape Cod Canal Strauss Bascule Bridge constructed in 1910 located in Massachusetts.

 

Douglas Butler posted
Photo taken by Douglas Butler The detail of a JM NS RR Strauss Heel Trunnion Bascule Bridge Ashtabula, OH.

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