The formal name for the Industrial Canal is the Inner Harbor Navigation Canal (IH-NC).
The Southern Railroad had a route that served New Orleans from Meridian, MS.
 |
| Photo by Gregory Taravella via InformedInfrastructure via Bridge Hunter, Sep 2019, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA) |
 |
| Photo by Gregory Taravella via RTandS via Bridge Hunter, Sep 2019, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA) |
 |
| Robert C Hecker Sr. posted Just a simple bridge in New Orleans, crosses the Industrial Canal at the entrance to Lake Pontchartrain. It looks like Robert got this photo from PortNOLA, Seabrook pulldown |
There used to be roadways cantilevered on both sides of the bridge. They were removed in 2014.
 |
| Street View, Apr 2017 |
Back before the parallel road bridge was built.
 |
| David Gulden posted, 1 of 3 photos INDUSTRIAL CANAL BACK IN THE DAY Travis Warriner: Lake looking into seabrook rr |
The construction of the flood gates just south of the bridge also caught the bridge in its lowered position.
 |
| USACE Photo by Paul Floro, Feb 2011, Public Domain |
If your source of photos is railfans and construction activity, the photos show the bridge in its down position. Because of the marine traffic, I think the normal position of the bridge is the raised position.
 |
| USACE Seabrook Floodgate Complex The Seabrook Floodgate Complex will consist of a 95-foot-wide navigable sector gate and two 50-foot-wide nonnavigable vertical lift gates approximately 540 feet south of the Senator Ted Hickey Bridge with floodwall tie-ins on the east and west sides. Other components of the Seabrook Floodgate Complex include upgrading the Alabama Great Southern Railroad gate, constructing new T-walls that will tie into the Orleans Metro perimeter system and raising the Hayne Boulevard ramp. The gates, floodwall tie-ins and other features associated with the Seabrook Floodgate Complex were built to an elevation of 16 feet above sea level. The gates’ sills were built to an elevation of 18 feet below sea level. [The whole project was $14.45b. This part was $165m, and it can handle just a 100-year storm surge.] |
 |
| 3D Satellite |
The bridge carries about 15 trains a day including n/b and s/b Amtrak. I moved away from the bridge to catch some of the cranes in the area in Apr 2017. They probably helped with the bridge rehabilitation. "The Seabrook Bridge crosses the canal adjacent to Lake Pontchartrain and is subject to frequent lake inundations of brackish water. During the last 95 years, the original paint coating deteriorated, which resulted in severe corrosion of the existing metalwork within the splash zone, including the railroad and highway floor systems and bottom chord elements....To maintain the bridge’s future capacity to continue to carry railroad loads, significant remediation of deteriorated splash zone components was required." As the roadways were removed, ballast beams (weights) had to be added to the span to keep the bascule bridge in balance. I assume it was easier to add weight to the truss than chip concrete off the 2-million pound counterweight. When the rehabilitation was done, replacement steel members could be heavier than the original members because they could remove some of the ballast beams. The work was done with in 14 weeks with a 12-hour, 4-day closure window in each week. [InformedInfrastructure]
 |
| Street View |
 |
| InformedInfrastructure The bridge is owned by the Port of New Orleans, not Norfolk Southern. [This bridge had been passing bridge inspections? Amtrak trains use this bridge. Maybe this bridge was inspected by the same people that were responsible for the Hard Rock Hotel inspections.] |
Confirmation that the cranes that are in the Apr 2017 street views were helping with the rehabilitation. Note the falsework by the counterweight so that they could use hydraulic jacks to remove some of the stress in the truss members that were being worked on.
 |
| InformedInfrastructure |
 |
| Tim Garrett posted Of all the Class I railroad companies who've called on New Orleans, I admit my favorite has probably always been Norfolk Southern (late Frisco / NOT / N.O.N.E.), since I grew up a block from the Back Belt. On its way out east, across the Industrial Canal (dug 1916-19), the Seabrook Bridge shown here (looking west) in 1942, would be a train's last water crossing before Lake Pontchartrain. Ed Todd: There are 6 class 1 railroads operating into the New Orleans metro area. BNSF (formerly SP), UP (formerly T&P), CPKC (formerly KCS), CN (formerly ICG), NS (formerly Southern) and CSX (formerly L&N). Of all the railroads that operate into New Orleans, none of them run through. Dan Callendar shared |
 |
| John WhoDat Ross commented on Tim's post, cropped Awesome pic! I grew up and still live 2 blocks away..I remember when it was still open to vehicular traffic late 70s until it closed.( left side of blk/wht pic) only 1 car at a time both ways. |
 |
| Tim Garrett commented on his post Closed to vehicular traffic last time I biked down there. |
 |
| Tim Garrett commented on his post Current overview, with Hayne Boulevard running east-west. |
The Seabrook Bridge was one of four almost-identical structures built for the Board of Commissioners of the Port of New Orleans in 1919, when the Board was constructing the canal between the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. There is also a bridge on the main line of the CSX, just south of the I-10 high rise bridge which was originally used by the Louisville & Nashville. The bridge at Florida Avenue which was originally used by the New Orleans Terminal Co. (Southern Railway-Norfolk Southern) and the New Orleans Public Belt, and has since been replaced by a vertical-lift structure. The southern-most bridge is at St. Claude Ave. and was originally used by the Louisiana Southern Ry. and a streetcar line. Those two rail lines are long gone, but the bridge is still in use.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the railroad between Meridian and New Orleans has never been consider a branch line.
Thanks. I changed the word "branch" to "route."
Delete