Portsmouth Branch Activity

Here are several photo's of the new bridge. It showing the lift deck severs as both road and rail use. Note the vehicle crossing gates on both sides of the lift. When a train is approaching, the
the lift is lowered to the lower position for rail traffic.

photo's: 
https://search.aol.com/aol/image?q=sara ... tion=click" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Interesting! I stand corrected.

This seems like a weird way to do this. I know train traffic isn't exactly regular over the bridge, but this design seems to be more maintenance intensive and will require the road to be closed whenever a train comes through, which was not the case with the old bridge.

I'm very curious why they went with this approach.

Almost as good as setting the wayback machine..

viewtopic.php?f=55&t=84166&p=1230698&hi ... k#p1230464

I will be giving a talk tomorrow evening at 7 at the Kittery Lions Club on the history of Kittery's railroads, including a good deal of bridge content. I'll show a bunch of additional photos of the state of the rail deck on the Kittery side as well. This stuff will eventually get into my Sarah Long construction blog, but I haven't had a chance to update it recently.

You're all welcome to attend the talk. It's free and open to the public.

I dug up a couple of photos I took in November on the lift span before the miter joints were encased in concrete. You can see that there are strips of diamond plate on the inside of the gauge that are removable for maintenance.

https://i.imgur.com/98uILhz.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/VQYHbLA.jpg

deathtopumpkins wrote:Interesting! I stand corrected.

This seems like a weird way to do this. I know train traffic isn't exactly regular over the bridge, but this design seems to be more maintenance intensive and will require the road to be closed whenever a train comes through, which was not the case with the old bridge.

I'm very curious why they went with this approach.

It was designed that way, so the bridge wouldn't have to be raised up for nearly every boat that passes under it and will allow for more uninterrupted traffic flow than the old one. The 2 to 3 round trip trains a year, will never amount to the closers the old bridge had to allow small vessels to pass underneath.

Wow, someone actually did some thinking..

Green Street railroad crossing reconstruction starts Monday https://t.co/w6RoptaxWu" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Sarah Mildred Long bridge opened to vehicle traffic March 31.

The old bridge had a slider section on the lower (railroad) level that opened a path for small boats, but only cleared about 35 feet. The new bridge has considerably more clearance with the roadway in place, as well as having the higher opening mid-channel.

Just did a test drive. The deck is higher and wider than the old one. The travel lanes are further from the center line, thus, you aren't driving with two wheels in the track gauge. They even thought of a shoulder so the bridge operator can drive up and park next to the control house.

So did we. Nice bridge. I wonder when the first train will make its way over? Would surely love to see that!

Can someone clarify for me if the track that passes under 95 north of the hampton tolls is the Portsmouth Branch? For some reason I though that branch was further north.

Recent article in the Press Herald states that the bridge cables are already showing signs of wear and twisting/stretching. Hope they can figure that out quickly and put a stop to it, otherwise this will be a very high-maintenance bridge. The initial price tag already makes it the most expensive bridge in ME or NH history, and by a pretty wide margin too.

eustis22 wrote:Can someone clarify for me if the track that passes under 95 north of the hampton tolls is the Portsmouth Branch? For some reason I though that branch was further north.

Per GEarth, the Portsmouth Branch passes under I-95 at +/- 43°03'N 70°48'W

The switch for the new bridge is going in today/tomorrow. Also some work being done in the yard, but I didn't investigate what, exactly.