26 May 2009
Public Hearing Set for Winona, Minn., Swing Bridge Update
Winona Minnesota USA - It's a tight squeeze
threading a 1,000-foot-long boat through the Canadian Pacific swing bridge across the Mississippi River at La Crescent,
the Winona Daily News reports. That's why the U.S. Coast Guard is preparing to spend millions of dollars modifying the
107-year-old span.
The Coast Guard determined more than a decade ago that the bridge is an unreasonable hazard to navigation and ordered the existing
swing span replaced with a lift section that will provide about twice as much room for barges to pass through.
Actual construction still is years away, said Jeff Johnson, spokesman for the Canadian Pacific Railway, which owns and operates the
bridge. Because the bridge is a functioning landmark with historical significance both as part of the railroad's history and as an
example of a steel-truss swing bridge, a public hearing will be tonight on the project's impact.
A report prepared for CPR by Hess, Rosie, and Company of Minneapolis outlines the history and significance of the bridge. It replaced
one built in 1876 that was key to the Chicago, Milwaukee, and St. Paul Railroad's early success connecting the three cities. In 1901,
steel and concrete replaced iron and stone. Construction took about a year and claimed the life of one worker,
26-year-old Fred Rickleff, who was crushed under a steel beam.
Because the riverbanks on the upper Mississippi are low and trains operate best on level grades, bridges typically were built with
moveable spans, according to the report. Swing spans were favored because they were cheaper and had fewer moving parts than bascules
and vertical lifts.
But times have changed. There's not much room for error when pushing a 105-foot-wide raft as long as three football
fields through the current opening, which according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' navigation charts is just 151 feet
across.
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