North Church Road Viaduct Over L.H.R. at Franklin Removed

The North Church Road viaduct over the old L.H.R. at Franklin has recently been dismantled and removed to make way for a new bridge. The viaduct was a steel superstructure built between 1927-1928 by the McClintic-Marshall Company to eliminate 4 grade crossings near the N.J. Zinc Company. In recent years it had been subject to extreme rusting and subsequent degradation. At one point, a covered stairway existed from the viaduct above to the L.H.R.'s Franklin Station below at grade level. The 2 pictures below were taken at approximately the same spot showing before and after.

Another L&HR 'landmark' bites the dust. Inevitable, but a shame nonetheless.

What it looked like- April 1974, from the caboose platform of that evening's NE-3:

Ah, there's that covered stairwell leading to the infamous Franklin Station....thanks Marty! apparently, from what I've heard, the new bridge will be completed around January 2014. I guess the thing that's good is that the construction of yesteryear lasted over 80 years.

A piece of my history going down. I remember passing over that bridge on a 4th grade class trip to the mines and a L&HR train came right under our bus. That was cool!