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My wife and I walked across the 1.25 mile 1888 NH rail bridge today. As soon as you’re on the bridge you know why it cost 35 million dollars. This is a very, very long railroad bridge. As your walking across, it seems endless. I wore my black golf hat but no one from the forum stopped and said hello. I guess the other 20,000 people there made it hard to find me. I was totally amazed by the scoop of this recent project. In 1888 this bridge had to be the eight wonder of the world. The entrance to the walkway wasn’t easy to find. We were driving around the streets were I thought the tracks might be and came on a I-girder under pass. I told my wife we’ll park the car and start following the tracks. A half mile later we found the entrance. The first part of the bridge is on a turn. Photo 1. We’re on the bridge about 1/3 of the way across. Photo 2. We’re about 5/8 across looking back to the entrance point. Photo 3. A shot of the Hudson river and old NYC 3 track main line on the east side of the bridge. Photo 4.
NYC_George
Nice pictures, George, and a beautiful view from the top. I'll tell you what, though. Those railings are almost identical to the railings on the Golden Gate Bridge and are nowhere near high enough to act as a suicide barrier. I'm amazed that issue never came up when they were doing the planning for this conversion. At least you only hit the Pacific when you go over the side on the GGB. It looks like some people are going to have bodies coming through their home's roofs.
I wore my black golf hat but no one from the forum stopped and said hello.
Dude,
If I had been there, I would've said hello!
Great pics.......
Jim your right about the railing there’re not very high, but in some of the photos I chose to leave out there’s an additional l0 foot high fence which protect the roads, houses and CSX’s tracks on both sides of the river. (Photos below) The photo of the river was taken with a telephoto lens before the extra 10 foot fences started. This bridge starts about ½ mile before it even gets to the river so there’s a lot of 10 foot fencing. The bridge connects to 26 miles of rail trails mostly on the west side but additional trails are planned for the Poughkeepsie side. There’s an updated version of the construction of the walkway at this link.
http://www.walkway.org/dynamic.php?id=construction&PHPSESSID=d789a337cd50e37661cfa075eb6d2823
NYC_George
That last photo is one good reason why I'm kinda doin' the ----"gotta work harder to do a simple thing" blues---
Glad to see the high fence over the area beyond the river, George. It prevents morons from throwing objects down on the trains and people below, as well as going over the side. I wish they had been more creative with the railing design over the river to make it harder for someone to go over the side but at least they will only hit the river. If that bridge follows the history of GGB, that low railing will become a point of contention for years to come.
Now that's a bridge! Nice that they didn't tear it down, but converted it to something that will be appreciated for a very long time. We need to see more of that going on. Jim, I don't think this is any different than any other tourist attraction that is setup for viewing the scenery, etc. (Besides, that ain't in San Fran with all their ...uh.... personalities
.)
Rex, we had people come from all over the world for their final act on the GGB. It wasn't just the local nuts. This bridge is different than other tourist attractions because it will soon be famous. Going over the side will be invariably fatal and give some publicity in death to people who, in life, felt like no one knew they existed. It just seems foolish to me not to have taken this into account when designing the railing system.
You make some very good points Jim. Sorry for being hardcore, but to destroy the beauty and openness of the spectacular view with fencing just to prevent the remote possibility of a jumper is going too far. They want to jump...they will find a place. BTW: have you seen that new "U" shaped Skywalk reaching out over Grande Canyon? It doesn't have any jumper prevention, just some glass wind breakers and...wow...that would be a spectacular dive.
Rex, I've been to the Skywalk. It costs almost $100 for the entrance fees. You have to drive about 20 miles of bad dirt road or pay another $15 to take a shuttle bus. It's about as far from any major city as you can get. It's never going to be a casual place to visit. Even so, the rails are curved inward to make it difficult to get on top of them. Even if you do, there's a six foot wall of clear glass panels about two feet out from the rail with nothing to grab on to and the glass surface was purposely made to be as slippery as possible to make it difficult, if not impossible, for someone to pull himself up and over the panes to take a dive. If this much effort was put into a remote attration like the Skywalk, it seems like the reconstructed bridge could have made some attempt to at least make it more difficult to go over the side than five foot railings.
Barry here's and intertesting photo taken on the oppsite side of the river. The CSX single track main line is in the background.
NYC_George
is this one of the bridges that you can see from state route 9 and 44 in NY. I have traveld over a bridge near there that you can see an old railway bridge in the distance. it has been about 8 years but I remember I would be Coming from Lime rock CT and would take the truck down route 44 to cross the Hudson on 9W? (i think) to get over to west point to see some friends in the Acadamy..
cool aera for photos
Trent there were only two railroad bridges that crossed the Hudson river up until 1974 when the NH / Penn Central bridge caught fire and was shortly closed to rail traffic. This is the bridge you saw from Rt 9 on your way to West Point. The only bridge left crosses the river about 70 miles north at Albany, NY and was built by the New York Central. The NH bridge was bought and to be sold for scrap but a grass roots campaign got going to save the historic land mark and 35 million dollars later it’s a New York state park. It was common for the NH to run over a 100 car freights across the bridge. I guess with a bridge that long the whole train would be on the bridge at one time.
NYC_George
Wow, that's a cool bridge. It's good to see it preserved and in use. If ya can't have trains, you might as well have walking trails.
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