Railroad Bridges Across the Mississippi River

Trains Magazine
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There have been plans to replace, not rebuild, the Mississippi River bridge for years. Every few years it seems like there’s some small activity that comes to naught.

They would like a bridge high enough that a draw span isn’t needed. If it would still be draw bridge, it sounded like it would be a lift bridge.

Bottom line in the current PSR, spend as little money as possible era, the bridge won’t be built anytime soon. I don’t expect to see it built, or even started, before I retire.

Jeff

2 Likes
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I’d suspect a similar approach, and perhaps a similar timeframe, for the Thebes bridge as for the Portal bridge improvement (which similarly replaces a lift span with a permanent bridge at suitably higher clearance elevation.

1 Like
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Couple of comments:

  1. The supervisor who ordered the MoPac train be held for 45 minutes was none other than Rob Krebs (early in his career) who eventually became CEO of BNSF (also Santa Fe prior to merger). Bynote: The Railroad Hall of Fame has extensive interviews with a number of railroad HoF personnel, including Krebs. These can be accessed on You Tube and are well worth the time. Typical interviews will be in multiple sessions and last for 2-3 hours.
  2. My wife and I discussed the possibility of travelling to Grand Tower, Il this summer and then “into Missouri” south of town. Also, upstream there is a similar section of Illinois which is on the Missouri side of the river. That is historic Kaskaskia which was isolated when the river changed course. We are several hours from the area, but I have farmland in Southern Illinois so the trip could serve multiple tasks. Also a trip to St. Louis and a dinner at our favorite restaurant would be in order…Charlie Gitto’s on the Hill. Could be a fun trip.

ed

3 Likes
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I didn’t know CN still had some ownership.

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you have the Eads, and MacArthur, Mckinley, Bellefontaine bridge, Wabash bridge Alton bridge and Merchants bridge unless google told me wrong they all should be railroad bridges too many for me to remember i woulda remembered eads mckenlley mcarthur and alton and thats it i keep forgetting wabash is in saint louis and i live round here

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lol when you say it didn’t practice good hygiene all i can picture is this dude who walked into golden corral and when hes getting his deserts i saw him look around and take a sip out the chocolate fountain and hastily wipe his face off with a napkin in his pocket i thought to myself well no chocolate for me