Railroad
The railroad track that runs across the bridge was originally part of the Boston & Maine Railroad, and connected to South Berwick via an easement that is now Rt. 236. The bridge replaced a railroad trestle that was located just upriver. The trestle collapsed on September 10, 1939, sending the engine (B&M #3666) and baggage car to the bottom of the river, where they remain. It had been weakened when a caisson used in the construction of the new bridge dragged its anchor cables, which pulled out several of the trestle's bents.
Currently, the tracks lead only to the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard in Kittery, and are used for the transportation of nuclear materials.
Read more about this topic: Sarah Mildred Long Bridge
Famous quotes containing the word railroad:
“This I saw when waking late,
Going by at a railroad rate,
Looking through wreaths of engine smoke
Far into the lives of other folk.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“The worst enemy of good government is not our ignorant foreign voter, but our educated domestic railroad president, our prominent business man, our leading lawyer.”
—John Jay Chapman (1862–1933)
“Though the railroad and the telegraph have been established on the shores of Maine, the Indian still looks out from her interior mountains over all these to the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)