From: lancelot@spock.uucp (Thor Lancelot Simon)
Subject: Re: NEC
Organization: Choate Rosemary Hall
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1993 21:20:47 GMT

In article <1993Jan21.030226.718@walter.cray.com> rl@ferris.cray.com (Randy Lambertus) writes:
>  Very nice article Len. About the Poughkeepsie bridge, what was
>the extent of the fire. In all the literature I read they allude to
>the damage by the fire, but never describe the circumstances or
>the actual results. Was this a wooden bridge that was completely
>burned or a steel structure that warped and feel. If it was steel
>how could a fire destroy it unless it was the ties that contributed
>to the blaze. 

It's a steel structure which in fact still exists.  PC had been skimping on
their maintenance to the point where the rail was so loose that the bridge
was operated under a rule of no brakes whatsoever.  As their financial troubles
worsened, New York state considered bailing them out for repairs to the bridge
and I believe talks were underway when the ties caught fire, doing some fairly
substantial structural damage.  This was around the time the PC went into
bankruptcy, so there wasn't much money around to fix things; moreover the state
comissioned the PC to determine the extent of damages, saying that they'd pay
if it was less than $X (where X is some number I don't really recall, and which
may never have been exactly fixed anyway).  The Poughkeepsie bridge was actually
rather a thorn in the side of the PC anyway, as when it existed the railroad
couldn't charge the mileage all the way north to Albany just to cross the
Hudson River, but as the railroad was so stingy with its maintenance, trains
almost always had to be routed through Albany nonetheless.  So, surprise
surprise it turns out that the bridge would cost substantially more to fix than
NY state is willing to pay, and the bankrupt PC certainly isn't willing to do
it.  Since then I believe some of the track leading to the bridge on each side
has been taken up, but it's not clear that the bridge would, in fact, be
prohibitively expensive to fix.  Currently I believe that the state owns it,
and leases it to a utility which runs gas and power lines across it.  A private
individual either owns or leases the trackage rights, as I've spoken with him
about the bridge several times.  So far as I can tell, though, he only owns the
rights because he could get them for more or less nothing; he also owns the
charter to the oldest railroad in the state, again evidently just for fun.  But
hey, anything's possible, right?  There are some pretty substantial elevation
problems with connecting the bridge to the existing Conrail line on the west
side of the river, and Conrail abandoned the line that it originally connected
to sometime in the early 80's.  Well, if demand for rail service were ever
sufficient, I imagine most of the problems could get solved.

>  Just where was the bridge located in relation to the Bear Mountain
>auto bridge? North or south, and could you see the old New Haven 
>bridge fom there? I am interested because I feel the demise of
>the Erie-Lackawanna was probably accelerated due to the loss of
>New England traffic from/to Maybrook.

Which old New Haven bridge?  The bridge is substantially north of Bear Mountain,
about 20 miles.  It connects Poughkeepsie and Highland, which are around a
bend in the river from Newburgh, which is where the Bear Mountain bridge is.
There's also an auto bridge about a half mile south of the rail bridge; it must
have been pretty spectacular to watch trains go by on the high trestle while
stuck in morning traffic.  The Poughkeepsie-Highland rail bridge was,
incidentally, built in 1888 by the Central New England railroad, and was at the
time the longest and highest trestle in existence.  I've been told that it was
modeled on a very similar but much smaller bridge providing service to the
cement factories of nearby Rosendale, NY, and having seen that bridge I wouldn't
be surprised if that were the case.

-- 
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*Thor Simon             * Okay, just a little pin-prick...There'll be no more-*
*tls@panix.COM          * Aieeeeaaaugh!-but you may feel a little _sick_.     *
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