Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge | |
---|---|
Coordinates | 40°38′15″N74°11′44″W / 40.637518°N 74.195486°W |
Carries | Conrail |
Crosses | Arthur Kill |
Locale | Elizabeth, New Jersey and Staten Island, New York, United States |
Owner | New York City Economic Development Corporation [1] [2] |
Characteristics | |
Design | Vertical-lift bridge |
Height | 215 feet (66 m) |
Longest span | 558 feet (170 m) [3] |
Clearance below | 135 feet (41 m) open 31 feet (9.4 m) closed [4] |
Rail characteristics | |
No. of tracks | 1 |
Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
Structure gauge | AAR |
Electrified | None |
History | |
Opened | August 25, 1959; reopened October 4, 2006 |
Location | |
References | |
[5] |
The Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Railroad Bridge is a rail vertical-lift bridge connecting Elizabethport, New Jersey and the Howland Hook Marine Terminal on Staten Island, New York, United States. The bridge was built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1959 to replace the Arthur Kill Bridge, a swing bridge opened in 1890. [6] It contains a single track that is used mainly to carry garbage out of New York City, as well as to transport freight to destinations in western Staten Island. The bridge parallels the Goethals Bridge, which carries Interstate 278. It has the longest lift span of any vertical-lift bridge in the world, [7] with two 215-foot (66 m) towers and a 558-foot (170 m) truss span that allows a 500-foot (152 m) channel. It clears mean high water by 31 feet (9.45 m) when closed and 135 feet (41 m) when lifted. [8]
After the bridge opened in 1959 upon having replaced the Arthur Kill Bridge, [6] rail traffic declined due to loss of manufacturing facilities on Staten Island. Bethlehem Steel closed in 1960, U.S. Gypsum in 1972, U.S. Lines-Howland Hook Marine Terminal in 1986, and Procter and Gamble in 1991. A shift to truck traffic also reduced rail traffic over the bridge, and the North Shore branch of rail service went through a series of owners. The three companies that owned the North Branch were B&O Railroad, CSX, and the Delaware Otsego Corporation. They saw the bridge as excess property. The last freight train went over the Arthur Kill Lift Bridge in 1990, and North Shore branch service ceased to operate until 2007. [9]
In 1994, the New York City Economic Development Corporation (NYCEDC) purchased the Arthur Kill Railroad Lift Bridge and the North Shore branch from CSX. [10] In December 2004, NYCEDC and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey announced a $72 million project to rehabilitate the bridge and reactivate freight rail service on Staten Island. Repairs included repainting the steel and rehabilitating the lift mechanism. [11] The bridge was painted royal blue in an homage to the B&O. [12] The rehabilitation project was completed in June 2006.
On October 4, 2006, a train crossed the bridge for the first time in 16 years. It was a single locomotive which took on switching duties at the New York Container Terminal, also known by its old name, Howland Hook. [13]
On April 2, 2007, normal operations involving garbage removal from the Staten Island Transfer Station started, which would result in an estimated 90,000 annual truck loads diverted from the nearby Goethals Bridge. [14] On October 4, 2007, New York Container Terminal, which operates Howland Hook, announced the opening of on-dock rail service called ExpressRail via the bridge, with regular service by Conrail (CRCX), CSX and Norfolk Southern railroads. [15] In 2013, Covanta Energy signed a contract with the New York City Sanitation Department to barge containers of solid waste from transfer stations in Queens and Manhattan to New York Container Terminal where they will be transferred to rail cars for shipment to Covanta waste to energy plants. [16]
Arthur Kill is a ship channel. The bridge is normally kept in the raised position (open to shipping), lowering to allow the passage of trains. [2] As of 2018, U.S. Coast Guard regulations [17] limit lowering the bridge to two 15-minute periods per day, with advance warning and restrictions on lowering during high tide. Conrail, which services Staten Island with one train a day, has stated that they do not see this limitation affecting current rail traffic levels, but it could become a problem if traffic increases significantly [16] : p. 15
The Staten Island Railway (SIR) is a rapid transit line in the New York City borough of Staten Island. It is owned by the Staten Island Rapid Transit Operating Authority (SIRTOA), a subsidiary of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and operated by the New York City Transit Authority Department of Subways. SIR operates 24 hours a day, seven days a week, providing local service between St. George and Tottenville, along the east side of the island. There is currently only one line on the island, and there is no direct rail link between the SIR and the New York City Subway system, but SIR riders do receive a free transfer to New York City Transit bus and subway lines, and the line is included on official New York City Subway maps. Commuters on the railway typically use the Staten Island Ferry to reach Manhattan. The line is accessible from within the Ferry Terminal, and most of its trains are timed to connect with the ferry. In 2023, the system had a ridership of 6,151,400, or about 17,900 per weekday as of the first quarter of 2024.
Conrail Shared Assets Operations (CSAO) is the commonly used name for modern-day Conrail, an American railroad company. It operates three networks, the North Jersey, South Jersey/Philadelphia, and Detroit Shared Assets Areas, where it serves as a contract local carrier and switching company for its owners, CSX Transportation and the Norfolk Southern Railway. When most of the former Conrail's track was split between these two railroads, the three shared assets areas were kept separate to avoid giving one railroad an advantage in those areas. The company operates using its own employees and infrastructure but owns no equipment outside MOW equipment.
The Chemical Coast is a section of Union and Middlesex counties in New Jersey located along the shores of the Arthur Kill, across from Staten Island, New York. The name is taken from the Conrail Chemical Coast Line, an important component in the ExpressRail system serving marine terminals in the Port of New York and New Jersey.
The Howland Hook Marine Terminal, operating as GCT New York, is a container port facility in the Port of New York and New Jersey located at Howland Hook in northwestern Staten Island, New York City. It is situated on the east side of the Arthur Kill, at the entrance to Newark Bay, just north of the Goethals Bridge and Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge.
Port Ivory is a coastal area in the northwestern corner of Staten Island, New York City, New York, United States. It is located on Newark Bay near the entrances the Kill van Kull in the east and Arthur Kill in the west. It is bordered by Arlington to the east, Old Place to the south, Newark Bay to the north, and the Arthur Kill to the west.
The Oak Point Link, also known as the South Bronx–Oak Point Link, is a 1.9-mile (3.1 km) long railroad line in the Bronx, New York City, United States, along the east bank of the Harlem River. It connects the Metro-North Railroad's Hudson Line with the Harlem River Intermodal Yard and the CSX Transportation Oak Point Yard at the north end of the Hell Gate Bridge.
The Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge is a railroad bridge spanning the Hudson River between Castleton-on-Hudson and Selkirk, New York in the United States.
The Port of New York and New Jersey is the port district of the New York-Newark metropolitan area, encompassing the region within approximately a 25-mile (40 km) radius of the Statue of Liberty National Monument.
The Cross-Harbor Rail Tunnel is a proposed freight rail transport tunnel under Upper New York Bay in the Port of New York and New Jersey between northeastern New Jersey and Long Island, including southern and eastern New York City.
The Delaware Otsego Corporation (DO) is an American railway holding company, which owns the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway and the Central New York Railroad. It is headquartered in Cooperstown, New York.
Linden Yard is the name of two separate railroad freight yards in Linden, New Jersey, United States. One is owned by the Staten Island Railway (SIR) and the other is managed by Conrail Shared Assets Operations along the Northeast Corridor (NEC) right of way.
Arlington Yard is a freight yard located on the North Shore Branch right of way of the Staten Island Railway in Staten Island, New York, United States. It lies west of the former Arlington station, east of Western Avenue, and north of the Staten Island Expressway in the Port Ivory neighborhood. The yard leads into the Travis Branch of the railway, the Howland Hook Container Terminal, and the Arthur Kill Lift Bridge to Elizabeth, New Jersey and the Chemical Coast and is part of the ExpressRail network.
The Upper Bay Bridge, or the Lehigh Valley Railroad Bridge, is a vertical lift bridge spanning the Newark Bay in northeastern New Jersey. It is used by CSX Transportation travelling through the North Jersey Shared Assets Area of the United States rail network along the National Docks Secondary line. The bridge is just north and parallel to the New Jersey Turnpike's Newark Bay Bridge. A notable train using the bridge is the Juice Train, which originates in Florida.
From the start of railroading in America through the first half of the 20th century, New York City and Long Island were major areas for rail freight transportation. However, their relative isolation from the mainland United States has always posed problems for rail traffic. Numerous factors over the late 20th century have caused further declines in freight rail traffic. Efforts to reverse this trend are ongoing, but have been met with limited success.
ExpressRail is a network of on- or near-dock rail yards supporting intermodal freight transport at the major container terminals of the Port of New York and New Jersey. The development of dockside trackage and rail yards for transloading has been overseen by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which works in partnership with other public and private stakeholders. As of 2019, four ExpressRail facilities were in operation, with a total built capacity of 1.5 million lifts.
The North Shore Branch is an abandoned branch of the Staten Island Railway in New York City, which operated along Staten Island's North Shore from Saint George to Port Ivory. The line continues into New Jersey via the Arthur Kill Vertical Lift Bridge to Aldene Junction in Cranford.
The Travis Branch is a branch of the Staten Island Railway in New York City, that operates from Arlington Yard to Fresh Kills, which is used for freight transportation along the West Shore, Staten Island.
The Baltimore and New York Railway was a railroad line built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) from Cranford, New Jersey, to the western side of the Arthur Kill Bridge in New Jersey, connecting with the North Shore Branch of Staten Island Rapid Transit. The line was built to provide the B&O access to a terminal in New York City, in Staten Island. Today, the line is used by CSX Transportation for freight trains.
The original Goethals Bridge connected Elizabeth, New Jersey to Staten Island, New York, near the Howland Hook Marine Terminal, Staten Island, New York over the Arthur Kill. In 2017 it was replaced by the New Goethals Bridge and later demolished.