Gov't Bridge at Rock Island, Il

http://www.mvr.usace.army.mil/MVRCams/RiverCam.asp This is the gov't bridge over the Mississippi at Rock Island , Il. I'm new here and hope i have'nt messed this up.......Excnw

I work on the signals for IAIS. If you have a question about the former Rock or the IAIS please feel free to contact me.....maybe I can help... maybe not.....be safe...Excnw.

You did just fine. Welcome aboard.

You haven't violated any of the site rules, nor any of my forum rules yet, so don't worry about it.

Welcome aboard and I, and the other forum members, look forward to your continued participation here.

Hey, thanks LCJ and Komachi for the welcome. I believe this is the oldest swing bridge of its type in existence over the Mississippi. Been working on the signal stuff the last few days. Will update later.......Excnw.

Found this: http://www.chinet.com/~plaws/GovtBridge-RI.jpg

It appears to be an artist's work sometime after the bridge was built and prior to lock and dam 15 being built underneath it. The bridge was completed in the late 1890's. The lock and dam was installed sometime in the 1930's.

At the very top of the bridge you can see the line wires and cross arms. Directly below is the 'turn pile' or what we now call a commutator. This is the feature that allows this type of bridge to do 360 degree turns. It can lock up in either direction. I've been told there only a handful of bridges in the entire world that can still do this.

I was inspecting the 'lever interlocker' in the control house a few days ago. One of the USS levers had an original mfg. stickers in it.......Nov. 13, 1903. And it's still working!!!!

PS....If you would like a copy of the signal plans (circa 1954) for this bridge, PM me. Only the cost of copying and postage. It's about six feet long.

Here's another similar bridge on the other side of Iowa. It's the Illinois Central bridge over the Missouri. It's still there, but no longer in use. CN(IC) still comes into Omaha somehow (I regularly see a CN/IC/GT single GP38 with a few cars passing my place in downtown Omaha) -- but they don't use this route anymore.

Illinois Central bridge Omaha

Unique bridge, I've never seen it. Maybe we should have a bridge topic for all railroads??!!

xcnw,
Been through that bridge on the water side many times, was the engineer on the M/V Rusty Flowers for eight years. We came downriver one night and got caught in a lightning storm while we were in the lock chamber at 15; the deckhands were sheltering in the valve house at the lower end of the lock and watched as lightning struck the bridge several times. They said that the span's junction with the land looked like something out of a horror movie with every lightning strike.
Tom