Second Narrows Bridge
Coordinates: 49 ° 17 '45 " N , 123 ° 1' 31" W.
| Second Narrows Bridge | ||
|---|---|---|
 |
||
| use | Railway bridge | |
| Convicted | Burrard Inlet | |
| Crossing of | Vancouver , North Vancouver | |
| construction | Lift bridge | |
| location | ||
|
||
The Second Narrows Bridge is a lift bridge for rail traffic in the Canadian province of British Columbia . It connects Vancouver with North Vancouver and crosses the Burrard Inlet . As the name implies, the bridge at the second bottleneck is located ( Engl. Secondhand narrows ) of this fjord . It is the second bridge at this point; the bridge opened in 1925 was replaced by a new building in 1969. Parallel to it runs a second bridge called the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrows Crossing , over which a highway runs.
history
As a result of the gold rush on the Klondike River , there were plans to build a railroad between Vancouver and Dawson as early as the 1890s . The first stage would have been to bridge the Burrard Inlet. Later plans provided for the development of the newly emerging port facilities and shipyards on the north bank. Various financial and political problems prevented the project from being carried out until the 1920s. The bridge could not be built until 1925. At first it was only available for road traffic , a year later trains also ran .
Several times as a result, ships collided with the bridge piers. On September 13, 1930, the cargo ship Pacific Gatherer tore down the entire middle section of the bridge. The bankruptcy of the bridge company and numerous lawsuits prevented the bridge from being repaired. Only when the provincial government bought the bridge in 1933 could it be repaired. After replacing the receiver with a lifting element, it was reopened for road and rail traffic in 1934.
After a pure road bridge was built immediately to the west, the Second Narrows Bridge was converted for pure rail traffic and sold to the Canadian National Railway in 1963 for the symbolic amount of one dollar . In 1969, a new building with a central section that could be raised higher was built immediately to the east; the original bridge was demolished in 1970.
The original Second Narrows Bridge in 1926
Collision of the Pacific Gatherer ship in 1930
Web links
- Brief history of the bridge and other photos ( Memento from July 17, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
- Bridges in Greater Vancouver