The former Toledo Terminal “Upper River Bridge” is coming down this week after its owner couldn’t even give away the structure.
Chad Young
TOLEDO, Ohio – Travelers on the Ohio Turnpike have passed one of its unique landmarks in Toledo for decades, but that will soon change. Crews have begun to remove the former Toledo Terminal “Upper Bridge” that runs parallel to the highway this week. The bridge connects Toledo on the north bank of the river with Perrysburg on the south bank.
The Toledo Blade reports that the bridge is being dismantled by Miller Brothers Construction under a $1.9 million state contract. Owner Wood County Port Authority was unable to give the bridge away after multiple engineering surveys deemed it unsuitable for recreational trail use.
The demolition work, which includes the construction of temporary causeways shown here, is expected to be done by Christmas. In spring 2019, Miller Brothers will construct a commemorative park on the Toledo side, according to the report.
Named for its position upriver from the railroad’s other river crossing, the bridge was damaged in March 1982 in a derailment. Toledo Terminal successor CSX Transportation conveyed the bridge to the public agency in 2011.
Center span had a gear which could have provided a means for the bridge to swing open, but it my lifetime never had the apparatus to do so. I’ve seen another bridge with that gear but nothing else in Fairport Harbor, Ohio.
Another piece of history…..gone
Much more in the Toledo Blade stories, including photos. And this nugget:
“inspections of the bridge performed by ODOT, the Lucas County Engineer’s Office, and Claude Brown & Associates, a Toledo-based engineering consultant hired by the port authority, all produced similar conclusions: the structure’s condition was too poor to make restoration practical.
While the bridge might be able to support the weight of a lightweight platform suitable for pedestrians or cyclists, a trail bridge that long needs to be robust enough to support emergency vehicles, Mr. Huffman said…
…Chessie Circle Trail plans call for a new pedestrian bridge to be built across the river at that location at some time in the future, but no funding for such a bridge has been identified. In the interim, the trail may be posted via the Maumee-Perrysburg Bridge, several miles upriver.”
I remember when trains ran across it. Center span was able to swing open but never saw it open. Guess that was before the turnpike was built.
And didn’t the center section swing?
I’ve always been curious why the Maumee River is so wide, considering that no one ever heard of it except those who find themselves in or around Toledo. Possibly this is a Lake Erie estuary, not a flowing river, at this point. I dialed up Wikipedia. According to Wik, the Maumee has the largest watershed of any river feeding the Great Lakes, basically from Fort Wayne to Toledo, plus a small area of Michigan. If it’s true that the Maumee’s drainage area is the largest (I’m not so sure), others must come very close. The St. Joseph River (draining SW Michigan and North Central Indiana), the Grand River (Michigan), Western New York’s Genessee River, and Wisconsin’s Fox River of the North, to name four, seem to drain comparably large areas. ( I might add that Maumee’s basin is some of the flattest land on earth, which is neither here nor there).
It’s my understanding the bridge was unstable and no longer safe to use. It’s unfortunate that a huge portion of TT trackage is gone, which once encircled the city. Now Toledo is a bottleneck in several places where if the the TT trackage were still in place would offer numerous alternative routing possibilities. We’re just waiting for the day the NS Maumee River bridge decides it no longer wants to work.
Mr. Landey, I too wonder about the terms of how CSX “conveyed the bridge to the public agency in 2011”. Sounds a little like squandering the public’s money by not fully understanding the condition of the bridge before accepting.
Britt Reid,
I’m quoting directly from the story here, since I guess you missed this part: “Owner Wood County Port Authority was unable to give the bridge away after multiple engineering surveys deemed it unsuitable for recreational trail use”, so no, the bridge couldn’t just be used for just people walking across it, not without spending millions for rehabilitation or a complete rebuild.
IAN _ I’ve made the same observation (from the Ohio Turnpike) about how lightly constructed this bridge appears to be. Until a recent map of Toledo in TRAINS-MAG, I never knew which railroad once owned it.
Since at least 1995 this bridge was nothing more than a skeleton. I passed that bridge on the Ohio Turnpike any number of times over the years. Looking at the bridge I thought it would be scrapped at some point. It was too far gone. It also looked like a safety threat. The ends were fenced off. It was covered in rust from lack of maintenance. It looked too light to handle the current generation of freight cars, etc.
I hate to take a bridge down, this one would have cost more to rebuild then to take it down.
Did CSX sell the bridge to the Port Authority or donate it to the Port Authority? Either way the Port Authority came up with the short end of the sick.
Im sure the bridge could of held just peole walking across it. Its cheaper to chop it up than restore it,