Rails to the Atlantic. Ron Brown
Bridge Company was set up to bridge the chasm.
The final design was put forward by the Dominion Bridge Company and called for an unusual structure that used cantilevers at the ends with a suspended span between them. The cantilevers measured about eighty-five metres and one hundred and thirty metres respectively, while the centre suspended span was forty-five metres. The overall length of the structure ended up being about four hundred metres, including approaches. It was opened for traffic in 1885. But with the increasing weight of the heavier locomotives and bigger trains, the bridge proved too light and was replaced in 1921 by a second double cantilever bridge. It remains in place today, while nearby the abutments and some piers of the original structure remain visible.
The Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge, Fredericton
Crossing the St. John River at Fredericton, the Bill Thorpe Walking Bridge is the world’s largest walking bridge.
It is said to be the world’s longest railway walking bridge. At 581 metres, that claim is unlikely to be challenged. This nine-span through-truss bridge was built by the Fredericton and St. Mary’s Railway and Bridge Company in 1886. It linked Fredericton, on the south bank of the Saint John River, to the emerging railway network on the north side, which ran from South Devon to Chatham on the ICR, as well as to Woodstock on the CPR. The first bridge was damaged in flooding in 1935, but was back in service two years later. By then it was under control of the CNR. That railway abandoned the line in 1996, and the bridge became part of a trail system from downtown Fredericton to Nashwaak. It functions not just as recreational trail, but also is popular with cycling commuters.
The Bridges of Nova Scotia
Grand Narrows Bridge
As the ICR built its rail line across Cape Breton Island, it encountered the Bras D’Or lakes, and chose the narrows in the lake system to cross. At the time it was built in 1890, the Grand Narrows Bridge was the longest in Nova Scotia. It was built by Robert Reid (of Newfoundland Railway fame) and measured more than five hundred metres. Its seven truss spans were manufactured by the Dominion Bridge Company in Montreal and floated to the site. A swing section allows boat traffic to pass. The bridge is easily viewed from the parallel Highway 223, while the beautiful Grand Narrows Hotel nearby, which once accommodated train travellers, now offers rooms as a bed and breakfast.
The Grand Narrows Bridge in Nova Scotia opens to allow boat traffic along the scenic Bras D’or lakes.
CNoR’s Nova Scotia Bridges
When the CNoR team of William Mackenzie and Donald Mann acquired the unfinished Halifax and Southwestern Railway in 1901 (the initials H&SW were often ridiculed to mean “Hellish Slow and Wobbly), they needed to bridge the LaHave River at Bridgewater. Here, they erected the longest bridge on the line, with six girder spans resting on stone piers. Part of the Bridgewater Centennial Trail, hikers can reach the bridge by stairs from the parking lot on King Sreet.
Another imposing CNoR bridge is the one that crosses the Mersey River in Liverpool, where the former station houses the Hank Snow Home Town Museum. Like that in Bridgewater, six steel girder spans rest on a string of piers.
The Bridges of Newfoundland
Newfoundland: The T’Rail Bridges
When the CNR abandoned its Newfoundland route, it left behind many bridges. While most were short spans across creeks and swamps, a few exceeded thirty metres. The longest of the lot is the bridge across the Exploits River in Bishops Falls, completed in 1901 after the third attempt at doing so. Although it does not rise high above the river, its 320-metre length, consisting of four bowstring trusses, makes it the longest in that province. The bridge has new decks to facilitate trail use. Many of the smaller bridges on the line are maintained by the T’Rail commission and are used primarily by ATVs and snowmobiles.
The Trinity Loop
The strange Trinity Loop is unique in North America. Built by the Reid Newfoundland Railway on the branch line to Bonavista in 1911, it was the solution to a steep descent toward the village of Trinity. The result was a 2,012-metre track curving through 310 degrees that circled around a pond and looped ten metres under itself. After the CNR gave up on the NL Railway in 1988, the Loop became an amusement park with vintage railway equipment following the track under the bridge. By the late 1990s that too was abandoned and tracks and equipment lay unused. In 2011 Hurricane Igor caused heavy damage to the tracks. Some of the equipment, however, still rests on site, although now heavily vandalized.
Several individuals have rallied to try to rescue the derelict attraction. Even though the site is listed on the Canadian Registry of Historic Places, the province has shown little interest in helping to resurrect the unusual feature. The municipality has incorporated policies into its official plan to “encourage the redevelopment of the Trinity Loop for a commercial tourism attraction.…” According to the Canadian Trackside Guide, the equipment consisted of a fourteen-ton diesel, a dining car, two boxcars, and a caboose.
Other Bridges
The bridge across the Tantramar Marsh leading into Sackville, New Brunswick, is a two-span arch-truss bridge on the original ICR line. What makes it interesting visually is its location immediately adjacent to an abandoned highway bridge.
The 460 metre Courcelles Bridge in Quebec’s Eastern Townships is one of the few bridges maintained by a municipality as a historic structure. It was built between 1891 and 1894 by the Quebec Central Railway, and served the rail line until 1991 when the rails were lifted. The line now forms part of a rail trail, although the bridge itself, with its open ties, is barricaded.
The ICR bridge that crosses the Wallace River between Tatamagouche and Pugwash was constructed with a swing section to allow boat traffic to access the sandstone quarries upstream for export to the construction industry in Boston and New York. The structure consists of three deck spans and a through-truss span in addition to the swing span. The bridge rests on four sandstone piers and lies about ten metres above the river. Today it is part of the Trans-Canada Trail between Pugwash and Pictou and is listed on the registry of Canada’s Historic Places. It is viewable only from the trail.
An impressive six-span deck-truss bridge reaches across the Salmon River in Chipman New Brunswick, built in 1907 by the Canadian Government Railway (later, the NTR) for its proposed cross Canada route from Moncton to the west coast. In the river nearby, the earlier stone pilings of the CPR are visible. The bridge remains in use by the CNR.
The CPR Short Line to Saint John, New Brunswick, crosses the Richelieu River at Saint Jean on a multi-span girder-plate bridge with a swing span in the middle to accommodate boat traffic. Near Mont Saint-Hilaire, the GTR also had a bridge across the Richelieu, and it was here that one of Canada’s worst train disasters occurred. In 1864 a newly hired locomotive engineer, unfamiliar with the line’s signalling system, misread a signal and plunged his passenger train into the river. Ninety-nine passengers, many of them new immigrants, perished that day. Today’s bridge consists of seven deck spans.
In Newcastle, New Brunswick, a pair of long bridges cross the Miramichi and Little Miramichi Rivers respectively, both of which extended about three hundred metres and comprise five through trusses sitting on stone piers. The CPR bridge over the St. Maurice River between Cap-de-la-Madeleine and Trois-Rivières stretches nearly three hundred metres, with five through trusses resting a string of piers.
And although it is neither the longest nor the highest bridge in eastern Canada, the single-span Pratt-truss bridge over the Nine Mile River (more like a creek) in the suburban sprawl that is Elmsdale, Nova Scotia, represents Canada’s oldest iron bridge. It was built in the 1870s when ICR railway builder Sandford Fleming began to insist that Canada’s railways give up the practise of building wooden trestles and adopt the more durable — and fireproof — iron bridge.
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The Face of the Railways: The Stations
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