The Portage Viaduct, officially known as the Genesee Arch Bridge since 2017, is a steel arch railroad bridge over the

Genesee River The Genesee River ( ) is a tributary of Lake Ontario flowing northward through the Twin Tiers of Pennsylvania and New York (state), New York in the United States. The river contains several waterfalls in New York at Letchworth State Park and Roch ...

Letchworth State Park Letchworth State Park is a New York State Park located in Livingston and Wyoming Counties in western Upstate New York. The park is roughly long, following the course of the Genesee River as it flows north through a deep gorge and over several ...

Livingston County, New York Livingston County is a county in the U.S. state of New York. As of the 2020 census, the population was 61,834. Its county seat is Geneseo. The county is named after Robert R. Livingston, who helped draft the Declaration of Independence a ...

. It is the third bridge at this location: the original timber bridge burned in 1875 and was replaced by an iron bridge, which lasted until it was replaced by the current steel bridge in 2017. It carries the

Southern Tier Line The Southern Tier Line is a railroad line owned and operated by the Norfolk Southern Railway in the U.S. states of New York and Pennsylvania. The line was built by the Erie Railroad and its predecessors and runs from Buffalo, New York, to Suff ...

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

Previous bridges

The

Erie Railroad Company The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the Northeastern United States, originally connecting Pavonia Terminal in Jersey City, New Jersey, with Lake Erie at Dunkirk, New York. The railroad expanded west to Chicago following its 1865 ...

built a wooden

trestle bridge A trestle bridge is a bridge composed of a number of short spans supported by closely spaced frames usually carrying a railroad line. A trestle (sometimes tressel) is a rigid frame used as a support, historically a tripod used to support a st ...

over the

just above the Upper Falls in the mid-1800s. Construction started on July 1, 1851, and the bridge opened on August 14, 1852. At the time, it was the longest and tallest wooden bridge in the world. In the early morning hours of May 6, 1875, the bridge was destroyed in a tremendous fire. The bridge was a total loss, leaving only the stone bridge

abutments An abutment is the Bridge#Structure types, substructure at the ends of a bridge Span (architecture), span or dam supporting its Bridge#Structure types, superstructure. Single-span bridges have abutments at each end that provide vertical and l ...

. Immediately after the fire, officials of the Erie Railroad Company moved quickly to replace the wooden bridge with one built of iron. Construction began on June 8, 1875, and the bridge opened for traffic on July 31, 1875. The bridge was long and high. This bridge was used until December 10, 2017. Despite a weight restriction, the 400-ton

Nickel Plate 765 Nickel Plate Road 765 is a preserved S-2 class 2-8-4 "Berkshire" type steam locomotive built by the Lima Locomotive Works Lima Locomotive Works (LLW) was an American firm that manufactured railroad locomotives from the 1870s through the 1950s. ...

steam locomotive passed over the bridge with passenger coaches as part of a heritage excursion in August 2015. Upper Falls in Letchworth 2 cropped

Popular local rumor contends that the Portage Bridge was used for a famous scene in the 1986 movie '' Stand By Me''. In reality, the bridge used in the movie is the Lake Britton Bridge in McArthur–Burney Falls Memorial State Park near

Redding, California Redding is a city in and the county seat of Shasta County, California, and the economic and cultural capital of the Shasta Cascade region of Northern California. Redding lies along the Sacramento River, north of Sacramento, California, Sacrame ...

Current bridge

On November 29, 2011,

announced plans to build a new steel bridge approximately to the south of the 1875 bridge. Norfolk Southern offered the 1875 bridge to the State of New York as a tourist viewing platform of the Upper Falls, but the State declined it, citing a lack of available funding. A steel

arch An arch is a curved vertical structure spanning an open space underneath it. Arches may support the load above them, or they may perform a purely decorative role. As a decorative element, the arch dates back to the 4th millennium BC, but stru ...

design for the new bridge, estimated to cost $71 million, was approved in late 2014. Construction started on October 27, 2015. Following the normal seasonal closing of the Portageville park auto entrance road for the winter in 2015, it remained closed until completion of the project in 2018. By late 2016, surveying work for the foundation of the new bridge was underway. In March 2017, construction of the main arch began. On December 11, 2017, the first train crossed the new bridge. The last pieces of the 1875 iron bridge were demolished on the morning of March 20, 2018. Norfolk Southern formally named the new bridge the "Genesee Arch Bridge" on May 24, 2018.

References

External links

{{Commons category, Genesee Arch Bridge
NKP 765 Erie Limited over the Portage Viaduct at Letchworth State Park
nbsp;– Video of a heritage passenger excursion over the bridge Railroad bridges in New York (state) Genesee River Bridges completed in 1852 Viaducts in the United States Steel bridges in the United States Iron bridges in the United States Trestle bridges in the United States Buildings and structures in Livingston County, New York Erie Railroad bridges Norfolk Southern Railway bridges Bridges completed in 2017 Transportation in Livingston County, New York

Previous bridges

Current bridge

References

Further reading

External links