Bridge to Nowhere
It's crazy to think it has been just over four years since the last train rolled across this bridge in February of 2018. Even then, the bridge was in a sorry state with its copper wiring stolen, which is what rendered it inoperable in the first place, and the bridge taking several hours to limp into position. This bridge, once a testament of Milwaukee Road engineering, will never be closed for rail traffic ever again.
Bridge Z-6 was built in 1899 by the American Bridge Works and designed by Onward Bates, the Superintendent of Bridges and Buildings for the Milwaukee Road at the time. The bridge's unique bobtail design was the answer to the geographical constraints of building a swing bridge with a 100-foot clearance on a bend on the North Branch.
For over a century, this bridge was the gateway to the industrial wastelands of Goose Island and Kingsbury Street, and Milwaukee Road operated an extensive switching operation based at Division Street Yard. After several decades of deindustrialization, hungry land developers, local aldermen, and residents successfully ran out the last remaining businesses east of the river. The Chicago Terminal attempted a car storage operation on the island in 2017 which proved to be short-lived. By February of 2018 when the last train rolled across Z-6, Sterling Bay, the developer that acquired the adjacent Finkl property, had ran the railroad off the island.
In this view, we are looking southeast past the decrepit bridge shanty towards downtown Chicago. The North Branch is on the right and the empty Finkl property on the left. In the distance on the left is the shuttered General Iron scrap yard which was successfully run out by the city earlier last year.
Be sure to check out my photo album from Bridge Z-6.
Bridge to Nowhere
It's crazy to think it has been just over four years since the last train rolled across this bridge in February of 2018. Even then, the bridge was in a sorry state with its copper wiring stolen, which is what rendered it inoperable in the first place, and the bridge taking several hours to limp into position. This bridge, once a testament of Milwaukee Road engineering, will never be closed for rail traffic ever again.
Bridge Z-6 was built in 1899 by the American Bridge Works and designed by Onward Bates, the Superintendent of Bridges and Buildings for the Milwaukee Road at the time. The bridge's unique bobtail design was the answer to the geographical constraints of building a swing bridge with a 100-foot clearance on a bend on the North Branch.
For over a century, this bridge was the gateway to the industrial wastelands of Goose Island and Kingsbury Street, and Milwaukee Road operated an extensive switching operation based at Division Street Yard. After several decades of deindustrialization, hungry land developers, local aldermen, and residents successfully ran out the last remaining businesses east of the river. The Chicago Terminal attempted a car storage operation on the island in 2017 which proved to be short-lived. By February of 2018 when the last train rolled across Z-6, Sterling Bay, the developer that acquired the adjacent Finkl property, had ran the railroad off the island.
In this view, we are looking southeast past the decrepit bridge shanty towards downtown Chicago. The North Branch is on the right and the empty Finkl property on the left. In the distance on the left is the shuttered General Iron scrap yard which was successfully run out by the city earlier last year.
Be sure to check out my photo album from Bridge Z-6.