Blackledge River Railroad Bridge

Connecticut

A three-and-a-half-mile branch line was leased out for nine hundred and ninety-nine years.

engineeringhistoricalhiking

In 1878, a tiny Connecticut railroad signed away its track for nine hundred and ninety-nine years. The line ran barely three and a half miles, from Colchester to a village then called Turnerville. The tenant was the Boston and New York Air Line Railroad. Four years later, the Air Line turned around and leased the whole thing to the New York, New Haven and Hartford for a mere ninety-nine. The crossing at the Blackledge River got rebuilt again and again. First a Howe truss. Then, in 1881, a new iron span a hundred and ten feet long. Before that one went in, crews moved twenty-five thousand yards of earth and laid twenty-five hundred cubic yards of masonry. Around 1912 came the bridge that stands there now. Riveted steel, a hundred and eight feet of double-intersection Warren truss, its bottom chord thirty-two feet above the water. The builders kept the old granite abutments and simply raised the structure five feet higher than before.

This is the first of 2 parts. The rest runs about 2 minutes and is read to you as you drive past. Hear the whole piece.

What this was written from
The line was leased on April 3, 1878, to the Boston & New York Air Line Railroad company for 999 years.

Written from Wikipedia, used under CC BY-SA 4.0.

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