Industrial History: 1933 Cape Cod Canal (Buzzards Bay) RR Bridge

1910: (Archived Bridge Hunter)

1933: (Bridge Hunter, the last four images are postcards from the Boston Public Library; no Historic Bridges; HAER; US Army Corps of Engineers; 3D Satellite, 174+ photos)

There is also two road bridges across the canal.

"Second longest lift bridge in the world, after the Arthur Kill Lift Bridge in Staten Island, NY." [Bridge Hunter] When it was constructed, it was the longest lift bridge in the world with a span of 544', which can be lowered in 2.5 minutes. The vertical clearance is 135'. The original cost was $1.56m. [CapeCodOnline]

By United States Navy, Kevin Burke - Navy NewsStand Photo ID: 060613-N-9999B-001 Navy NewsStand Home, Public Domain, Link

Cape Cod Photography posted
The Cape Cod Canal in 1934
Bridges Now and Then posted
Massachusetts' Cape Cod Canal and Railroad Bridge c. 1934. (Bourne Police Department)
Howard Swanson: What is interesting is that the new truss was constructed on falsework in two halves. When the channel was shut down, the two halves were connected at the middle joints and the counterweight ropes were attached. This required the new towers to have a big enough opening to allow the ends of the lift span to slide through. This is an alternative method of erecting a lift span. Typically the span is constructed on barges and floated in. I assume that the method used in this location was due to a shallow channel that wasn’t deep enough for barges.

Note the existing bascule bridge in the above construction photo.

Douglas Butler posted
First Strauss Heel Trunnion Bascule Bridge built in 1910 by the Strauss Bascule Bridge Co and fabricated by the Pennsylvania Steel Co crossing the Cape Cod Canal for the New York New Haven & Hartford RR in Bourne, MA was replaced in 1935 with a Vertical Lift Bridge.

Dennis DeBruler: I checked, the bridge Strauss finished in 1908 did not have the rocker arm. So he did not perfect his heel-trunnion design until 1910. https://industrialscenery.blogspot.com/.../c-kinzie-wells...

A depot is just a little north of the bridge.

Street View, Sep 2017 via Dennis DeBruler

The bridge is owned by the US Army Corps of Engineers and the railroad is owned by the state. It was closed for refurbishing 2002-03 at a cost of $30m. The railroad is used by trash and seasonal passenger trains. [Wikipedia, CapeCodOnline]

Stew Baker posted
My view crossing the cape cod canal on the vertical lift bridge
Eric Augatis Be careful, personal electronic devices & all.
Stew Baker That was years back.

safe_image for Built In The 1900s, The Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge In Massachusetts Was Once The Longest Lift Bridge In The World
"Now, Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge is the second longest lift bridge in the country. The longest being the Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge, which connects Staten Island to New Jersey."

Ghost Rails and Forgotten Highways posted

The railroad bridge at Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts spends almost all of its life in the open position. The federal rulebook says so outright: "The vertical lift span on the railroad bridge is normally kept in the raised (open) position except when it is lowered for the passage of trains, or for maintenance purposes." That is 33 CFR 207.20, the Army Corps regulation governing the Cape Cod Canal. Most movable bridges sit closed and open when a boat comes. This one sits open and closes when a train comes. The 544-foot lift span waits 135 feet above the water, between towers 271 feet tall. The reason is not engineering. It is a purchase decision Congress argued about for nine years.

The canal was private property. August Belmont II's Boston, Cape Cod and New York Canal Company dug it between 1909 and 1914 and ran it as a toll seaway. The United States took over operating it during the First World War, and the question of buying it outright went to Congress and stayed there. The Senate printed a report titled "Acquisition of the Cape Cod Canal" on February 25, 1919. The Secretary of War transmitted a draft purchase bill on June 2, 1919. The House reported on the canal on June 1, 1920. The President forwarded more correspondence about buying it in December 1921. The House reported again on February 11, 1924. Title did not pass to the United States until 1928, at a price of about $11.4 million.

Ownership changed what could be built. The crossings the government inherited were obstacles: a bascule railroad bridge dating to 1910, and two highway drawbridges, at Bourne in 1911 and Sagamore in 1913, each with a navigational opening of 140 feet. The Army Corps replaced all three between 1933 and 1935 with Depression-era federal money. The Bourne and Sagamore highway bridges were dedicated on June 22, 1935, each with a center span of 616 feet and a vertical clearance of 135 feet, so no car ever waits for a ship. The railroad bridge opened on December 29, 1935, then the longest vertical lift span in the world. The American Society of Civil Engineers puts the federal cost of the three bridges at $4.6 million and the workforce at as many as 700.

The canal has been toll-free ever since, and the Army Corps still owns the bridges, which is why the current fight rhymes with the old one. The Bourne and Sagamore spans are more than ninety years old and carry traffic nobody designed them for. On December 15, 2023 the U.S. Department of Transportation awarded Massachusetts $372 million from the Mega grant program toward replacing the Sagamore. On July 12, 2024 the state announced close to $1 billion more from the Bridge Investment Program, on top of $700 million it had committed itself. A century on, the argument is still about who owns a crossing and who pays to keep it standing. If you have sat at Buzzards Bay and watched that span come down for a train, how long did you wait?

The same regulation spells out how the span talks to boats: two long air-horn blasts before it is lowered, one long blast before it is raised, and four quick blasts to tell a vessel the span cannot be raised right away. Vessels arriving while the span is down are told to turn and stem the current at designated stop points until the bridge is back in the raised position. While those three bridges were going up, the Corps was also widening the canal itself - work finished in 1940 that left it the widest sea-level canal in the world.

David StGermain posted
Scenic Buzzards Bay

Karen Fitzgerald

David Albert Thatcher posted
Cape cod main line.

Francis Otterbein posted
Cape Cod Canal railroad bridge, Bourne, Ma.

Duane DeGowin commented on Kenneth's share
Cape cod canal railroad bridge

Bob Perreault posted
Cape Cod canal bridge. Still in use today. Buzzards Bay Massachusetts
Erich Hanke: Ex New Haven trackage.
James Milton: I've never seen it in the down position.
Bob Perreault: James Milton there is a scenic train that runs seasonality and a trash train that runs daily. I live about 20 minutes from it so I get to see go up and down a lot.

River Rail Photo posted
Energy On The Bridge. Due to some recent mechanical problems with processing the “contents”, an unusual Saturday Mass Coastal “Energy Train” was operated on August 20, 2022, seen crossing the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge from Buzzards Bay to Bourne, Massachusetts with MC 2007 GP9u née-ATSF 701 leading. After unloading, the train waited at Buttermilk to follow the MBTA Cape Flyer, sparing the passengers the privilege of following the train down the Cape.
Full resolution and prints at: https://www.riverrailphoto.com/mc

Jonathan Konopka posted
Cape Cod Canal Lift Bridge in Bourne, MA. Photo by Vincent Colombo.

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Screenshot
While taking a ride came to Buzzards Bay and got to watch the Canal Bridge in action - my Dad worked on engines in Southie when it was New Haven Railroad, then Penn Central and Conrail when it relocated to Brighton - enjoy

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Screenshot
[After the train passed, was he expecting the bridge to go back up? It never did.]

I had never noticed the decoration on the top beam before. Now that I see it, I can find it in the above image.

Cape Cod And Islands Railroads And Trains History posted

Bay Colony Railroad No. 1052 ALCO S2 Nee Portland Terminal Railroad No. 1052 ( Built Circa 1943 - 1945 ) moving cars crossing Cape Cod Canal Vertical Lift Railroad Bridge

- Date 1991

- Location Buzzards Bay, MA.

Andrew Roth shared

Chris Waystack: That's Canal Jct, where the Falmouth Line (left) and Cape Main (right) split. Looks to be the morning empty trash train headed to the Yarmouth transfer station.

An elevation view from the river

A nautical view of the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Lift Bridge.

The span wights about 2200 tons; counterbalanced by weights in the towers.

Thanks for the add!

John DiPietro shared a YouTube link of it going down. Unfortunately, it is titled "Biggest rail bridge in World." It is not even the biggest lift bridge.

Philip M. Goldstein Keeping comparisons within type of bridge: Vertical Lift (not trestles or viaducts); the longest Vertical Lift Bridge for railroad traffic is the Arthur Kill VLB, a/k/a AK Bridge between Elizabeth, NJ & Arlington, Staten Island, NY. Built by Baltimore & Ohio in 1959, and has a 558 foot lift span. It was refurbished in the 1990's and sees daily use for waste container & intermodal traffic interchange between CSAO ExpressRail facility and New York Container Terminal.
AK has 215 foot towers, and vertical clearance of 135 feet.
Cape Cod Canal VLB is 544 feet long, 271 foot towers, with a vertical clearance of 135 feet. Keep in mind, Cape Cod Canal Bridge has ornamental tower tops, not of importance to functioning design.

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