The Ohio Connecting Railroad Bridge is a steel bridge which crosses the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

at Brunot's Island at the west end of

Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, United States, and the county seat of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, Allegheny County. It is the most populous city in both Allegheny County and Wester ...

, United States. It consists of two major through

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...

spans over the main and back channels of the river, of and respectively, with deck truss approaches.

History

Original bridge

The original Ohio Connecting Bridge was built in 1890 by the Ohio Connecting Railway. It was a single-track bridge. It was built as a freight bypass so the freight trains of the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

could bypass the congested

passenger station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing such ...

in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Traffic could move in either direction between the Pennsylvania Railroad

main line Mainline, ''Main line'', or ''Main Line'' may refer to: Transportation Railway * Main line (railway), the principal artery of a railway system * Main line railway preservation, the practice of operating preserved trains on an operational railw ...

Pitcairn, Pennsylvania Pitcairn is a borough in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, east of Pittsburgh's central business district, named for Robert Pitcairn, an official of the Pennsylvania Railroad. Early in the 20th century, Pitcairn was the site of large railroad ...

(part of the Pittsburgh Division at that location) and the

Fort Wayne Line The Fort Wayne Line and Fort Wayne Secondary is a rail line owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), Chicago, Fort Wayne and Eastern Railroad (CFE), and CSX Transportation in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana. The line runs from Pi ...

at the north end of the Ohio Connecting Bridge. Trains would traverse the

Port Perry Branch The Port Perry Branch is a rail line owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The line runs from the Pittsburgh Line in North Versailles Township southwest through the Port Perry Tunnel and across the ...

, Monongahela Division, and Panhandle Division in order to reach the Pittsburgh Division or the Fort Wayne Line. Construction of the northern approach to the bridge required the demolition of the original Pittsburgh U.S. Marine Hospital (Pittsburgh).

Current bridge

By 1915 the original bridge was not large enough to handle the increasing freight traffic, so a new bridge was built with two tracks. The new bridge was built around the old bridge while the old bridge was still in service. The new bridge also had a

siding Siding may refer to: * Siding (construction), the outer covering or cladding of a house * Siding (rail) A siding, in rail terminology, is a low-speed track section distinct from a running line or through route such as a main line, branch l ...

and car elevator in the center so coal could be delivered to the coal-fired power plant on the island. This 1915 bridge is still in service. The north end of the bridge has a wye so trains can be directed west or east. If a train is directed east it must pass next to Island Avenue Yard on the Isle Connector to get to the mainline. Trains at the south end of the bridge could be directed east onto the Monongahela Division or south/southwest onto the Panhandle Division, Scully Yard, or onto the

Chartiers Branch The Chartiers branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad followed Chartiers Creek from Carnegie to Washington, passing Bridgeville, present day Southpointe, and Canonsburg. It is long and construction was completed in 1867 and is still in use today, ...

. In 1968 the Pennsylvania Railroad merged with the

New York Central The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

to form

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...

. Penn Central became a part of

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

in 1976. In 1999,

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

and

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...

(NS) bought Conrail, with NS getting 58% and CSX getting 42%. The Ohio Connecting Bridge was acquired by NS.

The present

NS continues to use the bridge as part of the route trains with double-stack containers use. This practice was started by Conrail in 1995. It now connects the

Mon Line The Mon Line is an 85-mile long Norfolk Southern rail line which runs along the Monongahela River for most of its route. History The predecessor of this line is the Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Railway. The northern portion (Pittsburgh to ...

, and the P&OC RR with the Fort Wayne Line and Main Line. The entire Panhandle Division/Weirton Secondary was abandoned in 1996, as required by the US Federal Government. Many coal trains coming out of the

Monongahela Valley The Monongahela River ( , )—often referred to locally as the Mon ()—is a U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map accessed August 15, 2011 river on the Allegheny Plateau in north-cen ...

also use this bridge. Sometimes mixed freight and other types of trains use the bridge. No scheduled passenger trains use the bridge.

References

External links

* {{Pittsburgh Railroad bridges in Pennsylvania Bridges over the Ohio River Bridges completed in 1915 Norfolk Southern Railway bridges Pennsylvania Railroad bridges Historic American Engineering Record in Pennsylvania Bridges in Pittsburgh Steel bridges in the United States 1915 establishments in Pennsylvania Railroad cutoffs