Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge

The Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Railroad Bridge is a rail vertical-lift bridge connecting Elizabethport, New Jersey and the Howland Hook Marine Terminal on Staten Island, New York, United States. The bridge was built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1959 to replace the Arthur Kill Bridge, a swing bridge opened in 1890. It contains a single track that is used mainly to carry garbage out of New York City, as well as to transport freight to destinations in western Staten Island. The bridge parallels the Goethals Bridge, which carries Interstate 278. It has the longest lift span of any vertical-lift bridge in the world, with two 215-foot towers and a 558-foot truss span that allows a 500-foot channel. It clears mean high water by 31 feet when closed and 135 feet when lifted.
After the bridge opened in 1959 upon having replaced the Arthur Kill Bridge, rail traffic declined due to loss of manufacturing facilities on Staten Island. Bethlehem Steel closed in 1960, U.S. Gypsum in 1972, U.S. Lines-Howland Hook Marine Terminal in 1986, and Procter and Gamble in 1991. A shift to truck traffic also reduced rail traffic over the bridge, and the North Shore branch of rail service went through a series of owners. The three companies that owned the North Branch were B&O Railroad, CSX, and the Delaware Otsego Corporation. They saw the bridge as excess property. The last freight train went over the Arthur Kill Lift Bridge in 1990, and North Shore branch service ceased to operate until 2007.

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