Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge

The Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge is a vertical lift bridge carrying a single rail line across the canal in Bourne, Massachusetts. The rail line on either side of the bridge is owned by the Massachusetts Department of Transportation and is used year-round by the Massachusetts Coastal Railroad for its refuse trains and other freight operations. The bridge is also used by seasonal tourist trains operated by the Cape Cod Central Railroad, as well as the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority’s seasonal CapeFLYER service, which runs between Boston and Hyannis.

Cape Cod Canal

Interest in a canal through this area dates back to the Plimoth Colony in the 1600s, when only about a mile of land separated the Mamomet River (later the Monument River), which flowed into Buzzards Bay, from the Scusset River, which flowed into Cape Cod Bay. ¹ In 1627, the Pilgrims established a trading post along the Mamomet River, and reaching it by water and a short overland portage proved far more practical than traveling twenty miles by land, though a full water route remained beyond the small colony’s means. General George Washington later recognized the canal’s strategic military value, and in 1776 ordered Continental Army engineer Thomas Machin to conduct the first known survey for the project. Over the following century, repeated surveys and construction attempts failed for lack of funding or engineering resources, while ships continued wrecking along Cape Cod’s outer banks at a rate of roughly one every two weeks by the late 1880s.

In 1904, financier August Belmont II took up the project, organizing the Boston, Cape Cod & New York Canal Company and partnering with civil engineer William Barclay Parsons, who confirmed the canal’s feasibility. ¹ Construction began in 1909, overcoming obstacles like massive glacial boulders through the use of steam shovels, dipper dredges, and railroad-based material removal.

1910 Railroad Bridge

A Strauss trunnion bascule bridge, featuring a movable main span of 160 feet, was completed over the still-unfinished canal in 1910. It was designed by the Strauss Bascule Bridge Company, fabricated by the Pennsylvania Steel Company, and used by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad. The canal itself opened on July 29, 1914, as a privately operated toll waterway, letting Belmont beat the Panama Canal’s opening by seventeen days. It was officially completed on April 10, 1916. Frequent accidents and mariners’ fears of its narrow, swift-current bridge openings meant the canal never achieved the traffic or profitability its investors expected.

Following wartime federal oversight during World War I, Belmont resumed control of the canal before selling it to the federal government in 1927 for $11.5 million. ¹ The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) took over operations in 1928, eliminating tolls and surveying shipping companies to understand their reluctance to use the route. The response was clear: the canal’s movable bridges were typically left in the down position, forcing ships to fight the current in a narrow channel while waiting for them to open, a problem that would ultimately drive the push for larger bridges.

Between 1935 and 1940, the USACE spent $21 million widening the canal to 480 feet and deepening it to 32 feet, making it the widest sea-level canal in the world at the time. ^{3 4}

1935 Railroad Bridge

When the canal was later widened, a railroad bridge with a short main span was no longer feasible, so the USACE instead pursued a vertical lift bridge to span the canal. Parsons, Klapp, Brinckerhoff & Douglas and McKim, Mead & White oversaw the design. Depression-era federal funding supported the project, creating hundreds of jobs for skilled and unskilled workers alike. ¹

Construction on the Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge began on December 18, 1933, under the Public Works Administration on behalf of the USACE. ² It opened on December 29, 1935, and at the time of its completion was the longest vertical lift bridge in the world.

In 2002, the bridge underwent a major rehabilitation, including the replacement of cables, machinery, and electrical systems, at a cost of $30 million. It reopened in 2003.