Middletown-Portland Railroad Bridge

A railroad bridge has crossed the Connecticut River between Middletown and Portland, Connecticut, since 1873, when the Boston & New York Air-Line Railroad built the first one. The present swing truss span replaced it in 1911 and is now owned by the Connecticut Department of Transportation, carrying Providence & Worcester freight trains to customers in Portland at a rate of roughly two a week. Opening the draw is a deliberate business, taking four to five minutes to pull the wedges, lift the centering latch, and rotate the span through ninety degrees.

The bridge appeared in the video for Billy Joel’s “The River of Dreams” in 1993. A rehabilitation planned for 2028 through 2031, estimated at $87 million, will rebuild its structural, mechanical, and electrical systems, replace the fenders at two piers, and put the rotation under programmed control.

The Middletown-Portland Railroad Bridge is a swing truss bridge carrying a single track across the Connecticut River between Middletown and Portland, Connecticut. The Connecticut Department of Transportation owns the structure, and the Providence & Worcester Railroad operates over it to serve freight customers in Portland.

The first railroad bridge at the site was built in 1873 by the Boston & New York Air-Line Railroad. It stood for 38 years before the present structure replaced it in 1911.

The bridge found an unlikely audience in 1993, when it appeared prominently in the video for Billy Joel’s “The River of Dreams.” ^{2 3}

Today, traffic across the bridge is light. Roughly two trains use it each week, or about a hundred in a year. ⁴ Opening or closing the draw takes four to five minutes, and the sequence is the same in either direction: ⁴

• Pull the wedges: 25 to 30 seconds.
• Lift the centering latch: 5 to 10 seconds.
• Rotate the span through ninety degrees: 180 to 210 seconds, until the centering latch catches and halts the motion.
• Drive the wedges: 25 to 30 seconds.

The rotation itself occupies three to three and a half minutes, varying with the operator’s handling of the span. The wedges and the centering latch account for roughly another minute in each direction.

Rehabilitation

As of August 2026, the Connecticut Department of Transportation intends to rehabilitate the bridge between 2028 and 2031 at a cost of $87 million. ¹ The work encompasses the structural, mechanical, and electrical systems, the installation of scour countermeasures, and the replacement of the deteriorated fender systems at piers three and four. ⁴

The estimate is apportioned as follows: ⁴

• Administrative and inspection costs, railroad support services, and a 10 percent contingency: $19,080,000.
• Superstructure repairs: $14,520,000.
• Fender replacement: $12,130,000.
• Environmental compliance, including lead paint and the disposal of materials: $9,400,000.
• Mechanical rehabilitation: $9,020,000.
• Scour countermeasures: $7,610,000.
• Site work, including clearing, grubbing, mobilization, and construction surveying: $7,060,000.
• Electrical rehabilitation: $3,120,000.
• New submarine cable and navigation lights: $2,240,000.
• Substructure repairs: $2,020,000.
• Railroad track work: $910,000.
• Traffic control: $70,000.

Once the rehabilitation is complete, the span will rotate at programmed speeds rather than at the operator’s discretion, turning consistently in three minutes, or as much as three and a half depending on the final speed and creep settings established during testing. ⁴