The Nickel Plate Road High-Level Bridge over the Cuyahoga River was constructed in 1917 and 1957 for the Nickel Plate Road.
The first river span at the present-day lift bridge was a swing bridge with a pier in the center of the river. 1 It was replaced with a wrought-iron viaduct with Fink trusses in 1882 for the New York, Chicago & St. Louis Railroad (Nickel Plate) and was designed by Nickel Plate’s J.A. Latcher, Chief Engineer, W.M. Hughes, Bridge Engineer, and W.D. Boch, Substructure Engineer.
It was replaced with a high-level bridge in 1917 that was designed by Chief Engineer, E.E. Hart. 1 It consisted of a plate girder viaduct and six deck and through riveted truss spans with a 167-foot Scherzer Rolling lift main span. At the time of its completion, the double-track, 3,010-foot viaduct was the longest in the nation. The main span was replaced with a 267-foot vertical lift designed by Hardesty & Hanover and railway company engineers R.T. Hewitt, H.H. Whitmore, and E.F. Marley.
In 1964, the Nickel Plate and several other midwestern carriers were merged into the larger Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W), which itself was combined with the Southern Railway in 1982 to form the Norfolk Southern Railway (NS).
Information
- State: Ohio
- Route: Norfolk Southern Railway
- Type: Vertical Lift, Parker Through Truss
- Status: Active - Railroad
- Total Length: 3,010 feet
- Main Span Length: 267 feet
- Spans:
- Navigational Clearance:
Sources
- Watson, Sara Ruth and John R. Wolfs. Bridges of Metropolitan Cleveland, 1981.