9 September 08: Trentonian Trifecta



The tide's a-rolling back downstream past The Falls, so put your paddle in the water and go with it, man. Next stop in our tidal bridge celebration is the Trenton Triple-shot about a mile below Calhoun Street.

LOWER TRENTON BRIDGE: First of these was the subject of a Tidal Bridges preview from a few weeks ago, an anagramical sample of the Lower Trenton Toll Supported Bridge's iconic sign: TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES.

While this bridge is the oldest -- built originally in 1806 -- of all crossings on the tidal Delaware River, its common nickname, "Lower Trenton Bridge", dates only to 1884, when the Calhoun Street Bridge was built, giving need for a better name than "Toll Bridge". Thus, the "Upper Trenton" and "Lower Trenton" bridges were born.

The sign, as mentioned before, was installed as neon in 1935, but actually existed in a slightly different appearance for two decades prior to that. As Trenton emerged as an industrial city at the turn of the 20th century, it took pride of its exports and the "Trenton makes, the world takes" slogan was adopted by the Trenton Chamber of Commerce. With the completion of the Pennsylvania Railroad's bridge (which is profiled below) in 1903, it seized the opportunity to proclaim the slogan to the thousands of passengers traveling the PRR's main line between Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston with the installation of a metal sign in 1911, electrified in 1917 and replaced with steel-and-neon in 1935. The LED sign we see today was installed in 2002.

With Trenton smack dab in the center of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between those same cities, the same is true of the eye-catching landmark sign today. Septa's R7 and New Jersey Transit's NEC line also use the Railroad Bridge -- for Septa passengers traveling between 30th Street and Trenton, and for NJT's empties en route to the Morrisville yard for servicing before returning to the rails back to Penn Station. Anyone on those trains looking to the north still understand that TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES.

For a new mini-essay of photos of the Lower Trenton Bridge (10 total), please click

HERE.

* * *

TRENTON-MORRISVILLE BRIDGE: Well then, imagine PRR's surprise when construction began on a new bridge for the Lincoln Highway, or US-1, which was at the time using the Lower Trenton Bridge.

The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, which was established as a joint venture between PA and NJ in 1935 (and which still operates 20 bridges across the river north of the PA Turnpike Bridge), constructed the new 12-span crossing in 1952 to accommodate auto technology and traffic growth. This was four years ahead of President Eisenhower's Interstate and Defense Highways Act of 1956.

Like the other toll bridges between NJ and PA downstream, there is only a westbound toll on the Trenton-Morrisville, this one 75¢. At present, a $100M rehabilitation project is bringing the bridge up to current standards, with reconstruction of the toll plaza, a complete re-decking, attention to the Morrisville side's on- and off-ramps, and a new auxiliary lane northbound, bringing the total to six lanes. The Bridge Commission has a thorough web site dedicated to the project HERE. For a new mini-essay of photos of the Trenton-Morrisville Bridge (4 total), please click

HERE.

* * *

MORRISVILLE-TRENTON RAILROAD BRIDGE: Long before Eisenhower and before even the Lincoln Highway, the train was the name of the game in interstate travel. No one made this a greater moneymaker than the Pennsylvania Railroad.

In 1871, the PRR purchased the Camden & Amboy Railroad, the first inter-city railroad system in the US. (CPRR.org.) It carried passengers between Philly and New York via its own ferry terminals in Camden and Perth Amboy. The PRR inherited these from Camden & Amboy, but in 1875, PRR's fiercest competitor, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, built a stone arch bridge between Yardley and West Trenton. The rebuilt version of this bridge is the first non-tidal bridge across the Delaware upstream, and carries both the Septa R3 and CSX freight. The Reading Bridge necessitated something faster than the ferries and more accommodating than the Lower Trenton Bridge.

In 1901, the PRR's chief engineer William H Brown designed the arch bridge between Morrisville and Trenton, a more direct route into the New Jersey capital than the Reading's line. (Steven M Richman, The Bridges of New Jersey.) Completed in 1903, the railroad bridge has been in active use ever since, nowadays by Amtrak, Septa and New Jersey Transit as mentioned above. The bridge was listed on Historic Register in 1979.

For a new mini-essay of photos of the Morrisville-Trenton Railroad Bridge (7 total), please click

HERE.

–B Love


SUMMER OF THE DELAWARE ARCHIVES:

• 5 September 08: Calhoun Street Bridge, my bridge
• 4 September 08: It's a Celebration, Bridges
• 3 September 08: "Scenic Overlook"
• 2 September 08: How I spent my Summer of the Delaware
• 25 August 08: Walk this way
• 18 August 08: Toke remnants
• 11 August 08: Pi reconsidered
• 4 August 08: A photographic interlude
• 29 July 08: Reconsidering Pi
• 25 July 08: Happy trail
• 18 July 08: Seeking the source
• 14 July 08: All this is mine
• 27 June 08: Welcome to the Summer of the Delaware

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