Bridge: New York Central Railroad Crossing the Grand River

Bridge was part of the Three Rivers--Kalamazoo-- Allegan--Grand Rapids Chicago and Michigan Lake Shore line. The line wasn't straightened or modernized when the NYC went on its huge rebuilding program in 1901, which sealed its doom. Most of the line south of Allegan was abandoned and pulled up, and traffic south of Grand Rapids was miniscule at best. Several industrial parks were built along the line in the 50's and 60's, but none generated any traffic. The PC merger made the line totally useless. Highway crossings south of Wyoming (where the bridge is) started being removed in the mid '70's. So much for the line. Boat traffic on the river ended around WW1. Someone spent some cash in the early '60's (or late '50's) to see if the bridge could still be turned for a paddlewheel boat scheme; the bridge was turned by hand a few feet, then returned. Nothing came of the boat idea. Penn Central used to park a long line of old auto racks and Flexi-Van flatcars (almost all in NYC paint). I walked through them on several occasions, and noticed that the rail didn't break at the bridge ends any more. There used to be a semaphore and a tattletale on the side closest to the river, between Indian Mounds Drive and the bridge itself, but thirty years of beer parties resulted in a fair amount of vandalism. The long curved trestle suffered a lot of vandalism in that at just about every party, someone tried to burn it down. I had always thought creosote-soaked ties and timbers would go up like gasoline, but these would only burn while attended. The Veterans Memorial underpass shows an incredible amount of damage. My guess as to why the trestle is still there is because most of the creosote is gone and the river and flora keeps the trestle quite damp. The beer parties, arson, and the location's former designation as "the" place to deposit bodies finally resulted in Indian Mounds, Veterans Memorial, and several other roads being closed & locked at night. I go there a lot when it's warm (obviously not now); this past Summer, the river was so low that two feet of the old crash barrier was above water. My guess is that those logs have been there since the bridge was built. The original setup with Kent Trails left the two winches for manually turning the bridge sticking out of the concrete deck; some years later they were removed. Liability reasons, I'd guess. They were easy to trip over. They looked like foot-high pyramids , flattened at the top, with two holes drilled into each angled face so eight poles could be inserted. That way, sixteen men could move the bridge if the power went out.