Dollard Avenue Bridges over Lachine Canal at LaSalle, Montreal, QC

Strauss: (Satellite, 25 photos)

Rolling: (Satellite)

That might be the heaviest counterweight that I have seen so far.

Street View, Apr 2009

 

Street View, Jul 2016

Grace Brown posted
LaSalle Montreal

Maybe there is so much counterweight on the Strauss bridge because they doubled the weight after they had a weight fall off a 1913 bridge in 2923.

Claudia Ottaviano-Maheux posted

In October 1923, the 900-ton counterweight of the Gauron Lift Bridge crashed to the ground rendering it impossible to lift the bridge to passing ship traffic in the Lachine canal. The canal was very busy with grain ships at the time & ships were lined up for 3 days while engineers figured a way to get the bridge out of the way. They finally pulled the bridge onto the bank pending repairs. Remember, the canal was the only way to navigate around the rapids & shallow waters around Montreal at the time as the seaway was only opened in 1959.

The Gauron Lift Bridge, connecting Dollard Ave to Ville St Pierre, was built by Dominion Bridge in 1912-1913, is one of the few bridges of this type left in Canada. Although not used since the canal closed in 1970, it is still intact. It now lifts with a 725 ton counterweight on the north side. In 1959, another bridge was built right next to it, called the Lafleur Bridge, to permit more traffic. The canal was closed to ship traffic in 1970.

Brian R. Wroblewski shared

Thats amazing to me that the counterweight just fell off like that. It also looks to have fallen off when the bridge was in the fully raised position. There had to be something really wrong with either the original concrete pour or the attachment hardware. We have 4 of those style bridges here in Buffalo, all 100+ years old & 3 of the 4 of them get the least amount of maintenance possible & as bad as some of them have deteriorated, none of the counter weights have ever just fallen off.

Lisa St.Pierre shared

Good morning everyone! This article is a piece of history predating to the seaway as we know it today! I hope you enjoy it! 

Dennis DeBruler commented on Brian's share
I wondered why a road bridge had four elephant-ear counterweights. Given this history, it makes sense that they doubled the counterweights for redundancy and made sure that if one fell off it wouldn't pull the other weights off. https://maps.app.goo.gl/VyeEtPL6Lw6tdzcJA

Brian R. Wroblewski commented on Lisa's share
Thats amazing to me that the counterweight just fell off like that. It also looks to have fallen off when the bridge was in the fully raised position. There had to be something really wrong with either the original concrete pour or the attachment hardware. We have 4 of those style bridges here in Buffalo, all 100+ years old & 3 of the 4 of them get the least amount of maintenance possible & as bad as some of them have deteriorated, none of the counter weights have ever just fallen off.
This is CSX CP-Draw (left) & the NS (NKP) bridge over the Buffalo River.