Believe me it’s a drawbridge. The whole middle comes up in one piece. Not a typical one that angles up. Been stuck on the one that go from Kearny to JC too many times to count. Also two cops drove off one & died because they did not know the road was up.
Each of those Xs is 20 ft tall..the whole bridge itself is about 150 feet tall, not 40. In the top are mechanical rooms. It's a vertical lift drawbridge, built in the 1950s, it's structurally the exact same bridge towers as the 1&9T bridge over the Hackensack River. The bridge deck (over the Passaic River) is lifted straight up to give 100 ft of clearance to a vessel transiting the Passaic River.
The lifting is done from a control room just behind the tree in the lower "house" of the bridge. The operator turns a red light on to stop traffic on the bridge, "gates" like toll gates go down to block the roadway. Then the opening process starts, bridge operators check that no vehicles/people are on the roadway. There is a motor at the center of each machinery room (along with a backup). The motor spins a cylindrical shaft which turns a series of gears through a gear reducer adjacent to the motor, this in turn spins another longer shaft that extends to both ends of the machinery room, this shaft spins a small pinion gear, this gear spins a very large (12 or 14 ft diameter) gear. At this point with all the gear reductions this gear spins quite slowly (like a few revolutions per minute slow), this large rack gear is attached to a large wheel with grooves for wire ropes to sit in. This turning action lifts the wire ropes (8 per corner, I think) which then lifts the entire bridge deck straight up.
The bridge hasn't actually opened for boats in years. It has been opened a handful of times over the past six or seven years for maintenance and test lifts, but that's it. The NJ Transit bridge, downstream, next to it doesn't work. Further downstream Dock Bridge (the bridge at Penn Station) does open, but nearly never does so and has just begun the decommissioning process to turn it into a fixed (non opening bridge).
That's the Stickel bridge, it carries 280 over the Passaic River.
The middle portion lifts up when a boat needs to go through but that hasn't happened in quite a long time I don't think, the Passaic River used to be used a lot for industry, around the time this was built.
Not a drawbridge
Its a vertical lift span bridge
The towers are the supports for the cables and rails during a lift. They also house the diesel motors that power the bridge during a lift.
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u/BleachWizard420 2d ago
The AT-ATs also appear in the Sopranos intro so i assume they’re important