I had noticed that the Trenton Channel Power Plant received its coal via railroad instead of Laker even though DTE built a coal dock in Superior, WI, to ship Powder River Basin coal to its plants along the Detroit River. At first, I assumed it was because the big ships had to use the fat part of the Detroit River on the east side of Grosse Ile. But when I used street view on the free bridge to get a view of the power plant, I noticed that the bridge had a swing span. More on the navigation channel after the topo maps below.
The 1913 toll bridge provides access to the north side of the Grosse Ile. One advantage of a toll bridge is that they can afford to maintain a website.
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| GrosseIleBridge |
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cmh2315fl Flickr Photo, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)Grosse Ile Toll Bridge (Detroit, Michigan)Historic Grosse Ile Toll Bridge over the Trenton Channel of the Detroit River between Detroit and the northern end of Grosse Ile, Michigan. The bridge was constructed between 1912 and 1913 for the Grosse Ile Bridge Company. It is a five-span polygonal Warren through truss swing bridge.
The bridge was hit by lake freighters in 1965 and 1992 requiring major repairs. |
"Over the years, the GIBC has completely renovated, and significantly expanded, the Toll Bridge. The GIBC has also had to perform major repairs to the Toll Bridge as a result of a large section of the span being hit by lake freighters in 1965 and 1992. Despite the magnitude of the damage caused during the September 1992 accident when the H. Lee White self-unloading bulk freighter knocked a section of the span into the river, the Toll Bridge was back in full operation by January of 1993. The GIBC replaced the bridge deck in 1986 and built a new central swing bearing in 1994. During 2005, the GIBC opened a toll plaza in Riverview which greatly increased the traffic flow capacity of the span." [GIBC-history]
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| cmh2315fl Flickr Photo, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) |
HistoricBridges-toll explains why a riveted truss is rare in Michigan.
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| Digitally Zoomed |
The 1931 free bridge provides access to the south side of the Grosse Ile. "Built 1932 on piers of Michigan Central rail bridge; rehabilitated 1980" [BridgeHunter-free] HistoricBridges-free has determined that the bridge opened on Sep 3, 1931 instead of 1932.
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cmh2315fl Flickr Photo, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC)Grosse Ile Parkway Bridge (Detroit, Michigan)1932 Grosse Ile Parkway Bridge over the Trenton Channel of the Detroit River between Detroit and Grosse Ile, Michigan. The bridge is also known as the Grosse Ile Free Bridge and the Wayne County Bridge.
The bridge is a Pratt through truss swing bridge. |
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| C Hanchey Photo via BridgeHunter-free, License: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial (CC BY-NC) |
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| Jonathan Konopka posted This is the Grosse Ile Free Bridge in Grosse Ile, MI. It is a swing bridge that was built in 1931 and carries Grosse Ile Parkway over the Trenton Channel of the Detroit River. |
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| Photo via HistoricBridges-free "The previous bridge at this location was also a railroad truss bridge, but it was a iron Post truss. Even back when this previous bridge was replaced, it would have been an uncommon bridge as Post truss bridges were never very popular." |
"Intact but closed to all traffic in May 2020 for repairs" [Bridge Hunter Index] The company that owns the toll bridge must love this because the repairs took a while because it was still closed in Jan 2021. I hope these repairs include stabilizing the sinking pier that HistoricBridges-free describes. The bridge was also closed in 2007 for major repairs.
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| Joe Morrow, Jan 2021 |
The free bridge was built before 1906, but blogspot won't let me put a "<" in the title because it doesn't know that it should convert it to "<".
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| 1906 Wyandotte Quad @ 1:62,500 |
As expected, NYC/Michigan Central quit servicing Grosse Ils after the 1931 road bridge was opened. And the Trenton Channel Power Plant has been built.
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| 1936 Rockwood and Wyandotte Quads @ 1:31,680 |
Taking a closer look at a satellite map, the east side of the river is basically a wet sandbar. So it is probably easier for USACE to maintain a navigation channel in the west side of the river. Or do they maintain a downbound channel on the west side and an upbound channel on the east side? This satellite image is why I wonder if they maintain two one-way channels because there is clearly a channel on the east side of Grosse Ile. No, it is not one-way travel. As detailed below, the 1992 allision with the toll bridge was downbound, whereas the 1965 allision was upbound.
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| Satellite |
I know that the west channel accommodates downbound traffic because of this photo of the 1974 705' M/V H. Lee White approaching the toll bridge. I know it is going downbound because the McLouth Steel Works is on the right side of the photo.
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| gibc-1992 |
It is significant that the swing span in the above photo is wide open because that Laker allided with the bridge on Sep 6, 1992.
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| gibc-1992 Despite the magnitude of the damage caused during the September 1992 accident when the H. Lee White self-unloading bulk freighter knocked a section of the span into the river, the Toll Bridge was back in full operation by January of 1993. |
The swing span is 305' long and provides two 125' "draws." The freighter was 78' wide. Two tugboats were helping to guide the freighter through the bridge. The span was open, BUT it was not opened soon enough. The bridge should have opened when signaled by the time the freighter was within 3000' of the bridge. But there were still cars spotted on the span when the freighter reached the point-of-no-return at 2000'. So the captain slammed it into reverse. I saw a ship go into emergency reverse for the Lake Street Bridge on the Chicago River. The ship turned dramatically. In other words, you loose directional control of the ship when you are in panic reverse. When the captain dropped the 13,000 pound bow anchor, he lost even more control of the direction of the ship. He almost got it stopped in time, "but its bow tapped the stationary span on the east side of the bridge. Because of the huge momentum of a ship laden with 67 million pounds of iron ore, this slight tap was enough to knock the entire 180-foot span into the water." The bridge was at fault because they did not open the draw soon enough and the captain was at fault because he should have dropped the anchor when he reversed the propeller. [caselaw]
During the 1965 allision by John T. Hutchinson, cars were still on the span that got hit. But no one was seriously hurt because people saw that the freighter was coming at them and got out of their cars and ran to safety.
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| Photo via gibc-1965 On August 6, 1965 the John T. Hutchinson, upbound in the Trenton Channel of the Detroit River after having unloaded taconite ore at McLouth Steel, lost steering control and struck a stationary section of the Toll Bridge. This caused the bridge section and two cars to drop into the river. Fortunately no one was seriously hurt, but the bridge was closed for several months. The Hutchinson sailed to AmShip's South Chicago yard for repairs. |
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| newspapers |
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| Digitally Zoomed |
I used street view to confirm that they now stop traffic before the cars get on the spans when a ship is approaching. This makes the wait time for the cars longer, but it improves the safety.
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| Street View, Jun 2018 |
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| 1 of 7 photos posted by Andrew Dean Detroit [The free bridge is framed by the smokestacks of the Trenton Power Plant, which is soon to be torn down.] |
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