page_title: Galveston Causeway
section_title: Railroad drawbridge replacement
hierarchical_section_title: Galveston Causeway / Railroad drawbridge replacement
caption_attribution_description: Old Galveston Causeway and railroad draw bridge. Galveston, Texas, USA.
context_page_description: The George & Cynthia Mitchell Memorial Causeway is a set of causeways in Galveston, Texas, United States. Two of the routes carry the southbound and northbound traffic of Interstate 45, while the original causeway is restricted to rail traffic. It is the main roadway access point to Galveston Island. The second access point is Bolivar Ferry.
  The causeway carries traffic over Galveston Bay and the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway. The original causeway was built in 1912 and carried both rail and auto traffic. The auto traffic was transferred to new causeways built to the west in 1939, leaving the original bridge for rail traffic. The original route was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1976.
context_section_description: The Original Drawspan was replaced in 1987 with a new narrower Bascule Span that pivoted from the Island side of instead of the Mainland side as the original did, also the new span did not include space for a roadway, and a new service building was built on the old roadway on the island side of the channel. In 2012, the bascule-type drawbridge on the railroad causeway was again replaced with a vertical-lift-type drawbridge, allowing the navigation channel through the draw span to be widened.  In 2001,  the U.S. Coast Guard had declared the old span's narrow passageway to be a hazard to navigation.  It was only 105 feet (32 m) wide, whereas the replacement vertical-lift span allowed the channel to be widened to about 300 feet (91 m). The old bridge was sold to Sonoma–Marin Area Rail Transit to be installed on the Northwestern Pacific Railroad in Petaluma, California to cross the Petaluma River.
caption: The old bascule bridge in its raised position.
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