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9 September 08: Trentonian Trifecta
The tide's a-rolling back downstream past The Falls, so put your paddle in the water and go with it, man. Next
stop in our tidal bridge celebration is the Trenton Triple-shot about a mile below Calhoun Street.
• LOWER TRENTON BRIDGE: First of these was the subject of a Tidal Bridges preview from a few weeks ago, an anagramical sample of the
Lower Trenton Toll Supported Bridge's iconic sign: TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES.
While this bridge is the oldest -- built originally in 1806 -- of all crossings on the tidal Delaware River, its common
nickname, "Lower Trenton Bridge", dates only to 1884, when the Calhoun Street Bridge was built, giving need for a better
name than "Toll Bridge". Thus, the "Upper Trenton" and "Lower Trenton" bridges were born.
The sign, as mentioned before, was installed as neon in 1935, but actually existed in a slightly different appearance for
two decades prior to that. As Trenton emerged as an industrial city at the turn of the 20th century, it took pride of its
exports and the "Trenton makes, the world takes" slogan was adopted by the Trenton Chamber of Commerce. With the completion
of the Pennsylvania Railroad's bridge (which is profiled below) in 1903, it seized the opportunity to proclaim the slogan to
the thousands of passengers traveling the PRR's main line between Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, New York and Boston
with the installation of a metal sign in 1911, electrified in 1917 and replaced with steel-and-neon in 1935. The LED sign we
see today was installed in 2002.
With Trenton smack dab in the center of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor between those same cities, the same is true of the
eye-catching landmark sign today. Septa's R7 and New Jersey Transit's NEC line also use the Railroad Bridge -- for Septa
passengers traveling between 30th Street and Trenton, and for NJT's empties en route to the Morrisville yard for servicing
before returning to the rails back to Penn Station. Anyone on those trains looking to the north still understand that
TRENTON MAKES, THE WORLD TAKES.
For a new mini-essay of photos of the Lower Trenton Bridge (10 total), please click
HERE.
* * *
• TRENTON-MORRISVILLE BRIDGE: Well then, imagine PRR's surprise when construction
began on a new bridge for the Lincoln Highway, or US-1, which was at the time using the Lower Trenton Bridge.
The Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, which was established as a joint venture between PA and NJ in 1935 (and
which still operates 20 bridges across the river north of the PA Turnpike Bridge), constructed the new 12-span crossing in
1952 to accommodate auto technology and traffic growth. This was four years ahead of President Eisenhower's Interstate and
Defense Highways Act of 1956.
Like the other toll bridges between NJ and PA downstream, there is only a westbound toll on the Trenton-Morrisville, this
one 75¢. At present, a $100M rehabilitation project is bringing the bridge up to current standards, with reconstruction
of the toll plaza, a complete re-decking, attention to the Morrisville side's on- and off-ramps, and a new auxiliary lane
northbound, bringing the total to six lanes. The Bridge Commission has a thorough web site dedicated to the project HERE.
For a new mini-essay of photos of the Trenton-Morrisville Bridge (4 total), please click
HERE.
* * *
• MORRISVILLE-TRENTON RAILROAD BRIDGE: Long before Eisenhower and before even the
Lincoln Highway, the train was the name of the game in interstate travel. No one made this a greater moneymaker than the
Pennsylvania Railroad.
In 1871, the PRR purchased the Camden & Amboy Railroad, the first inter-city railroad system in the US. (CPRR.org.) It carried passengers between Philly
and New York via its own ferry terminals in Camden and Perth Amboy. The PRR inherited these from Camden & Amboy, but in
1875, PRR's fiercest competitor, the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, built a stone arch bridge between Yardley and West
Trenton. The rebuilt version of this bridge is the first non-tidal bridge across the Delaware upstream, and carries both the
Septa R3 and CSX freight. The Reading Bridge necessitated something faster than the ferries and more accommodating than the
Lower Trenton Bridge.
In 1901, the PRR's chief engineer William H Brown designed the arch bridge between Morrisville and Trenton, a more direct
route into the New Jersey capital than the Reading's line. (Steven M Richman, The Bridges of New Jersey.) Completed in 1903,
the railroad bridge has been in active use ever since, nowadays by Amtrak, Septa and New Jersey Transit as mentioned above.
The bridge was listed on Historic Register in 1979.
For a new mini-essay of photos of the Morrisville-Trenton Railroad Bridge (7 total), please click
HERE.
B Love
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SUMMER OF THE DELAWARE ARCHIVES:
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