railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail transport is one of the two primary means of ...

bridge over the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located along the Tennessee River and borders Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia to the south. With a population of 181,099 in 2020, it is Tennessee ...

. It has a main span of . The original span was a swing span with a center pivot that was originally built in ca. 1879/1880. It was replaced by a vertical lift span in 1917, but the lift towers and machinery were not installed until 1920. It remains a very busy crossing on the

Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway The Cincinnati, New Orleans and Texas Pacific Railway (abbreviated: CNO&TP; ) is a railroad that owns the Cincinnati Southern Railway from Cincinnati, Ohio, south to Chattanooga, Tennessee, and leases it to the Norfolk Southern Railway system. T ...

, a major subsidiary of the

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 ...

. The bridge carries two mainline tracks across the river. The bridge is one of only three known nesting locations in

Tennessee Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...

for

peregrine falcon The peregrine falcon (''Falco peregrinus''), also known simply as the peregrine, is a Cosmopolitan distribution, cosmopolitan bird of prey (raptor) in the family (biology), family Falconidae renowned for its speed. A large, Corvus (genus), cro ...

s, a Tennessee

endangered species An endangered species is a species that is very likely to become extinct in the near future, either worldwide or in a particular political jurisdiction. Endangered species may be at risk due to factors such as habitat loss, poaching, inv ...

Sources

* {{coord, 35.1045, -85.2335, display=title Railroad bridges in Tennessee Bridges completed in 1920 Vertical lift bridges in the United States Norfolk Southern Railway bridges Southern Railway (U.S.) Bridges in Chattanooga, Tennessee Bridges over the Tennessee River Towers in Tennessee