page_title: ASB Bridge
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: ASB Bridge / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Armour, Swift, en:Burlington Bridge, Kansas City, Jackson County, MO. View of entire bridge looking Northwest.
context_page_description: The Armour-Swift-Burlington Bridge, also known as the North Kansas City Bridge and the LRC Bridge, is a rail crossing over the Missouri River in Kansas City, Missouri that formerly handled car traffic.
context_section_description: The piers were built in 1890. However, later that year, lack of funding prevented the bridge from being built. In 1909, Waddell & Harrington designed the current bridge and construction started. The bridge is one of two of this type that had car traffic on Route 9 on the upper level, and rail traffic on the lower level. The lower deck could be raised to permit riverboats to pass without interrupting car traffic on top. This design allowed the hangers from the lower deck to go through the truss members of the upper deck.
  It was built by a combination of Armour Packing Company, Swift & Company, and Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad.
  In 1987, the Heart of America Bridge opened to the east to replace the vehicular portion.
  In 1996, the remaining part of the ASB was designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers as a national landmark in civil engineering. The bridge is now owned by the BNSF Railway. The ASB has a 428-foot main span, and makes it the ninth-longest vertical-lift drawbridge in the United States.
caption: ASB Bridge with road deck c. 1981
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