M&B Naheola Bridge
Description
The Naheola Bridge was, until 2000, one of only two bridges in the world where automobile traffic and railroad traffic shared the same running surface. In 2001 a new bridge was constructed for automobile traffic, as the old bridge was one narrow lane in width and large vehicles had to go a long way around to get to the paper products plant on the other side.Facts
- Overview
- Vertical lift bridge over Tombigbee River
- Location
- Choctaw County, Alabama, and Marengo County, Alabama
- Status
- Open to rail traffic
- History
- Built 1934 by the Virginia Bridge & Iron Co.; Road surface removed and bridge closed to automobiles in 2000, Open to railroad traffic
- Builder
- - Virginia Bridge & Iron Co. of Roanoke, Virginia
- Design
- Vertical lift through truss bridge with riveted connections.
- Also called
- AL 114 Tombigbee River Bridge
- Approximate latitude, longitude
- +32.23772, -88.01547 (decimal degrees)
32°14'16" N, 88°00'56" W (degrees°minutes'seconds") - Approximate UTM coordinates
- 16/404329/3567238 (zone/easting/northing)
- USGS topographic map
- Pennington
- Inventory number
- BH 44069 (Bridgehunter.com ID)
Update Log
- September 24, 2013: Updated by Luke Harden: Added categories "Navigable waterway", "Railroad", "Rail-and-Road"
- June 30, 2011: Updated by C Hanchey: Added bridge builder and date
- March 23, 2010: Updated by Nathan Holth: Added Street View and Corrected Bridge Type.
- February 10, 2010: Added by Jared Rainer
Sources
- Jared Rainer - chumrain [at] att [dot] net
- Nathan Holth
- C Hanchey - cmh2315fl [at] yahoo [dot] com
- Douglas Butler
Comments
Naheola Railroad bridge drawing.
Webmaster's note: The photo that was here has been incorporated into the main site.
A 1930 steel stringer bridge over the Mississippi River in Morrison County, Minnesota, also serves this purpose. The railroad and the highway share the same bridge deck.
R.R. St. in Rome,N.Y. has done this since 1900, and continues to handle both cars & trains today.
This bridge also carried cars and trains up till 1979. And still has a grate decking on each side of the truss. (might be made into a pedestrian bridge soon.
My guess is that there were more than two in the world that accommodated rail and road traffic on the same surface. One that comes to mind is the James St. Swing Bridge in Thunder Bay, Ontario. See attached photo.
Photos of the bridge in 2001 when it still had the part that cars could drive across.
"Until it's closure to automobile traffic in 2000, the Naheola Bridge was one of only two bridges in the world that accomodated rail and auto traffic on the same traveling surface. Traffic lights were mounted at each end of the bridge to signal the auto traffic to stop or proceed. The lights were controlled by the drawbridge operator, who was stationed in the bridge house near the middle of the bridge. This was necessary because the bridge is only wide enough for one-way traffic, and motorists could not see from one end of it to the other because the half-mile long structure had a blind curve at one end. The lights were also necessary to warn motorists of the presence of a train or the possibility of the drawbridge being in a raised position to allow barge traffic underneath."
- http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~alccgs/history/naheolabridge.html
This page's URL is http://bridgehunter.com/al/choctaw/naheola/