Carroll Avenue\'s Bascule Bridge on Chicago Tonight

[themats]

Last night on Channel 11\'s Chicago Tonight Geoffrey Baer was taking questions from viewers about Chicago history.  One of the questions was about the Carroll Ave. bridge.  He gave a little bit of background about the RR history of the area, when the last train ran, etc.  There were a couple of pictures shown, including one shot of the bridge with part of it resting on what looked like a support in the middle of the river, and another of the current bridge with another train bridge right next to it--couldn\'t tell if the second bridge was to the north or south.  He also mentioned that the current site of the Carroll Ave. bridge was actually the site of the first bridge over the river in Chicago, a non-RR bridge.

Here\'s the link:

http://www.wttw.com/main.taf?p=42,8,1&vid=031909c

Mike Murray
La Grange Park, IL

[ray gerard]

I believe I read somewhere that the featured bridge was built to replace the second bridge in the photo, the second bridge appears North of it\'s replacement and was a scissors bridge, the mid-river support that appears under the new bridge in the photo is an group of pilings in the river the older bridge would sit over when open, the pilings protect the bridge from boat impact

[ray gerard]

a couple of things about the segment:
1. the bridge is not abandoned, it remains for potential future use by owner Union Pacific and/or the City,
2. it is kept open to allow boat traffic to pass as it is very close to water level, I imagine train crews headed to the Sun-Times accessed the open bridge by walking across the Kinzie St. bridge