(
Archived Bridge Hunter;
Historic Bridges;
B&T;
Satellite)
"Significance: "Because Pennsylvania has few low-lying areas, the Darby River
Bridge is one of a limited number of movable railroad structures in
the state, and even more rare as an overhead-counterweight bascule
bridge." [
HAER_data]
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HAER PA,23-EDDY,1--1
1. View looking south-southeast by 160 degrees, toward Delaware River. Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Bridge in foreground, Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge behind. - Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington Railroad, Darby River Bridge, Spanning Darby Creek, South of Essington Avenue (State Route 291), Eddystone, Delaware County, PA |
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HAER PA,23-EDDY,1--2
2. View looking due east along Pennsylvania railroad, with bascule spans raised. |
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HAER PA,23-EDDY,1--3
3. View looking due east along Pennsylvania Railroad, showing underside of bascule leaf. Note that reduction gears and pinion operate rack mounted to bottom of girders. |
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| Digitally Zoomed |
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HAER PA,23-EDDY,1--4
4. Perspective view, looking north-northwest at Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Bridge. |
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HAER PA,23-EDDY,1--5
5. Perspective view showing counterweights of both bridges and operator's house for Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge, looking southwest by 230 degrees. |
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HAER PA,23-EDDY,1--6
6. Detail view, looking north-northwest, showing underside of counterweight and main trunnion bearing for bascule leaf of Philadelphia & Reading Railroad Bridge. |
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HAER PA,23-EDDY,1--7
7. Elevation view, looking south-southwest, showing bascule leaf, counterweight, and operator's house for Pennsylvania Railroad Bridge. |
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Jonathan Konopka posted on Aug 28, 2022
These are the Darby Creek Railroad Bridges in Greater Philadelphia, PA. They are a pair of bascule bridges that were built in 1917 and carry former PRR railroad lines over Darby Creek. Photo is courtesy of HistoricBridges.org.
[Actually, the northern bridge carried the Reading Railroad.] |
I got another Historic Bridges photo since Elaine Deutsch caught the Pennsy bridge in the closed position on Nov 3, 2014. Since there is more boat traffic than train traffic here, most photos catch the Pennsy bridge in the open position. Conrail abandoned the Reading route east of Eddystone, so that bridge is always up.
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| Photo via HistoricBridges (link at the top of the page) |
Pennsy was north of Reading at Ridley Creek, but south of Reading at Darby Creek.
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| 1953/55 Bridgeport Quad @ 24,000 |
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| 8th of 26 photos in B&T (link at the top of the page) |
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| B&T (link at the top of the page), this webpage has a nice history as well as 26 overview photos. |
Since the Reading bridge was abandoned soon after Conrail was formed in 1976, it still has its original interlocking machine and signaling pipelines. (The Pennsy bridge was converted to remote control in 2005.) The
position-light blog has a lot of photos of the details of the Reading signaling equipment including these three photos.
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a
The interlocking frame. |
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b
The guts of the interlocking frame. |
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c
Signalling pipelines controlling the rail locks. |
Abandoned
posted five photos with the comment:
The Darby Creek Bridges consist of two bascule spans crossing Darby Creek near Chester, Pennsylvania. Built in 1917, one bridge carried the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad (later the Reading Company) on its Philadelphia & Chester Branch, while the other served the Pennsylvania Railroad's Chester & Philadelphia Branch.
Today, one bridge remains in use by CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern Railway. The other was abandoned in 1976 following the formation of Conrail.
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