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59-749: Built in 1927, the 95-foot (29-meter) bridge is a town lattice truss construction over a single span. Its WGCB number is 01-05-12. The Easley Covered Bridge was listed on the Alabama Register of Landmarks and Heritage on March 3, 1976. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on August 20, 1981. It is currently the oldest and shortest of three historic covered bridges still existing in Blount County. The bridge which had been closed in 2009 has now been restored and reopened to motor vehicle traffic on October 22, 2012. It

118-488: A bypass around Rochester. The Terminal Railway 's Gardenville Cutoff, allowing through traffic to bypass Buffalo to the southeast, opened in 1898. The Schenectady Detour consisted of two connections to the West Shore Railroad, allowing through trains to bypass downtown Schenectady. The full project opened in 1902. The Cleveland Short Line Railway built a bypass of Cleveland, Ohio, completed in 1912. In 1924,

177-478: A classification yard and livestock pens on 300 acres of land (known as West Albany). Facilities included locomotive shops, freight and passenger car shops, and roundhouse terminals. These were the New York Central's primary back shops until the end of steam in 1957. The Troy and Greenbush Railroad was chartered in 1845 and opened later that year, connecting Troy south to Greenbush (now Rensselaer ) on

236-575: A line between Buffalo and Niagara Falls. It was leased to New York Central Railroad in 1853. Also in 1855 came the merger with the Lewiston Railroad , running from Niagara Falls north to Lewiston . It was chartered in 1836 and opened in 1837, without connections to other railroads. In 1854, a southern extension opened to the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad and the line was leased to the railroad. The Canandaigua and Niagara Falls Railroad

295-576: A network of commuter lines in New York and Massachusetts. Westchester County, New York had the railroad's Hudson, Harlem, and Putnam lines into Grand Central Terminal in Manhattan (Putnam Division trains required a change at High Bridge, New York), while New Jersey and Rockland County, New York were serviced by the West Shore Line between Weehawken and Kingston, New York, on the west side of

354-631: A way for freight and especially passengers to avoid the extensive and time-consuming locks on the Erie Canal between Schenectady and Albany. The Mohawk and Hudson opened on September 24, 1831, and changed its name to the Albany and Schenectady Railroad on April 19, 1847. Until the 1840s it used an inclined plane and pulley system at either end of the line to pull passenger cars up the steep hills in Albany and Schenectady. As locomotive technology progressed,

413-559: Is accessible from both sides of Easley Bridge Road. It is maintained by the Blount County Commission and the Alabama Department of Transportation . The Easley Covered Bridge was built by a crew led by foreman Forrest Tidwell and his nephew Zelma C. Tidwell in 1927 over Dub Branch. Other than occasional repair work, the bridge had been in continuous use since it was constructed. After a routine inspection,

472-449: Is not always the same as total bridge length. Lattice truss bridge A lattice truss bridge is a form of truss bridge that uses many small, closely spaced diagonal elements forming a lattice . The design was patented in 1820 by architect Ithiel Town . Originally a means of erecting a substantial bridge from mere planks employing lower–skilled labor, rather than heavy timbers and more expensive carpenters and equipment,

531-625: The Alfred H. Smith Memorial Bridge was constructed as part of the Hudson River Connecting Railroad 's Castleton Cut-Off, a 27.5-mile-long freight bypass of the congested West Albany terminal area and West Albany Hill. An unrelated realignment was made in the 1910s at Rome, when the Erie Canal was realigned and widened onto a new alignment south of downtown Rome. The NYC main line was shifted south out of downtown to

590-685: The Harlem Line ). The surviving sections of the West Side Line south of 34th Street reopened as the High Line , a linear park built between 2009 and 2014. In 1867, Cornelius Vanderbilt acquired control of the Albany to Buffalo -running New York Central Railroad, with the help of maneuverings related to the Hudson River Bridge in Albany. On November 1, 1869, he merged the railroad with his Hudson River Railroad to form

649-490: The Pittsburgh and Lake Erie and Boston and Albany Railroads in 1887 and 1900, respectively, with both roads remaining as independently-operating subsidiaries. William H. Newman, president of the New York Central lines, resigned in 1909. Newman had been president since 1901, when he replaced Samuel R. Callaway (who had replaced Depew as president in 1898). In 1914, the operations of eleven subsidiaries were merged with

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708-579: The Rochester and Syracuse Direct Railway was chartered and immediately merged into the Rochester and Syracuse Railroad on August 6, 1850. That line opened June 1, 1853, running much more directly between those two cities, roughly parallel to the Erie Canal. The Tonawanda Railroad , to the west of Rochester, was chartered on April 24, 1832, to build from that city to Attica . The first section, from Rochester southwest to Batavia , opened May 5, 1837, and

767-521: The 1950s that began to deprive NYC of its long-distance passenger trade. The Interstate Highway Act of 1956 helped create a network of government subsidized highways for motor vehicle travel throughout the country, enticing more people to travel by car, as well as haul freight by truck. The 1959 opening of the Saint Lawrence Seaway also adversely affected NYC freight business: container shipments could now be directly shipped to ports along

826-547: The 20th century, shipyards and airplane hangars demanded ever greater clear spans. Howard Carroll built the first completely wrought-iron lattice truss bridge. This was built for the New York Central Railroad in 1859. New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad ( reporting mark NYC ) was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of

885-761: The Big Four, was formed on June 30, 1889, by the merger of the Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati and Indianapolis Railway , the Cincinnati, Indianapolis, St. Louis and Chicago Railway and the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railway. The following year, the company gained control of the former Indiana Bloomington and Western Railway . By 1906, the Big Four was itself acquired by the New York Central Railroad. It operated independently until 1930; it

944-512: The Boston and Albany. This influenced a great deal about the line, from advertising to locomotive design, built around its flagship New York-Chicago Water Level Route. A number of bypasses and cutoffs were built around congested areas. The Junction Railroad 's Buffalo Belt Line opened in 1871, providing a bypass of Buffalo to the northeast as well as a loop route for passenger trains via downtown. The West Shore Railroad, acquired in 1885, provided

1003-531: The Easley Covered Bridge was closed in 2009 due to unsafe conditions along with nearby Swann Covered Bridge . The Horton Mill Covered Bridge was already closed as a result of vandalism which occurred in 2007. Restoration of all three bridges began in late 2011. Money for these projects primarily came from the federal National Historic Covered Bridge Preservation Program as well as transportation enhancement funds. The $ 469,110 construction contract

1062-640: The Easley Covered Bridge was reopened to motor vehicle traffic on October 22, 2012. In late 2015, cameras were installed at the three remaining covered bridges in Blount County to help deter vandalism after graffiti was found on the Easley Covered Bridge a year earlier. It has since been cleaned and re-painted. Main Span Length: 35.1 ft (10.7 m) Total Span Length: 83.0 ft (25.3 m) Deck Width: 10.8 ft (3.3 m) Vertical Clearance: 9.0 ft (2.7 m) Above measurements are approximate and unofficial. Total span length

1121-490: The Erie Canal and serve Rome, and so the Syracuse and Utica Direct Railroad was chartered on January 26, 1853. Nothing of that line was ever built, though the later West Shore Railroad , acquired by New York Central Railroad in 1885, served the same purpose. The Auburn and Syracuse Railroad was chartered on May 1, 1834, and opened mostly in 1838, the remaining 4 miles (6.4 km) opening on June 4, 1839. A month later, with

1180-625: The Great Lakes, eliminating the railroads' freight hauls between the east and the Midwest. The NYC also carried a substantial tax burden from governments that saw rail infrastructure as a source of property tax revenues – taxes that were not imposed upon interstate highways. To make matters worse, most railroads, including the NYC, were saddled with a World War II-era tax of 15% on passenger fares, which remained until 1962: 17 years after

1239-610: The Hudson River Railroad, the West Side Line was built in 1934 in the borough of Manhattan as an elevated bypass of then-abandoned street running trackage on Tenth and Eleventh Avenues. The elevated section has since been abandoned, and the tunnel north of 35th Street is used only by Amtrak trains to New York Penn Station (all other trains use the Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad to reach

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1298-688: The Hudson River. The New York Central, like many U.S. railroads, declined after the Second World War. Problems resurfaced that had plagued the railroad industry before the war, such as over-regulation by the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC), which severely regulated the rates charged by the railroad, along with continuing competition from automobiles and trucks. These problems were coupled with even more-formidable forms of competition, such as airline service in

1357-518: The Mohawk River, paralleling the Erie Canal, to Utica . Of the ten early railroads bordering the Erie Canal, the U&;S was the most profitable. It was headed by Erastus Corning , future president of the consolidated New York Central. On May 7, 1844, the railroad was authorized to carry freight with some restrictions, and on May 12, 1847, the ban was fully dropped, but the company still had to pay

1416-645: The NYC from opening. This was a connection between Syracuse and Rochester, running from the main line at Lyons to the Auburn Road at Geneva. It was merged into the NYC in 1890. In 1885, the New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railway , a competitor since 1883 with trackage along the west shore of the Hudson River and on to Buffalo closely paralleling the NYC, was taken over by the NYC as the West Shore Railroad and developed passenger, freight, and car float operations at Weehawken Terminal . The NYC assumed control of

1475-515: The NYC's eastern trackage and NS acquiring most of NYC's western trackage. Extensive trackage existed in the states of New York , Pennsylvania , Ohio , Michigan , Indiana , Illinois , Massachusetts and West Virginia , plus additional trackage in portions of the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec . At the end of 1925, New York Central Railroad operated 11,584 miles (18,643 km) of road and 26,395 miles (42,479 km) of track; at

1534-659: The New York Central & Hudson River Railroad, re-forming the New York Central Railroad. From the beginning of the merger, the railroad was publicly referred to as the New York Central Lines. In the summer of 1935, the identification was changed to the New York Central System, that name being kept until the merger with the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1968. The Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago and St. Louis Railway , also known as

1593-450: The New York Central Railroad were optimized for speed on that flat raceway of a main line, rather than slow mountain lugging. Famous locomotives of the system included the well-known 4-6-4 Hudsons , particularly the 1937–38 J-3a's; 4-8-2 World War II–era 1940 L-3 and 1942 L-4 Mohawks ; and the 1945–46 S-class Niagaras : fast 4-8-4 locomotives often considered the epitome of their breed by steam locomotive aficionados ( railfans ). For

1652-549: The New York Central and Hudson River Railroad. This extended the system south from Albany along the east bank of the Hudson River to New York City, with the leased Troy and Greenbush Railroad running from Albany north to Troy . Vanderbilt's other lines were operated as part of the railroad included the New York and Harlem Railroad, Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway , Canada Southern Railway , and Michigan Central Railroad . The Spuyten Duyvil and Port Morris Railroad

1711-460: The Syracuse and Utica Railroad by building a more direct route, reducing travel time by a half-hour. The company was merged before any line could be built. Albany industrialist and Mohawk Valley Railroad owner Erastus Corning managed to unite the above railroads together into one system, and on March 17, 1853, executives and stockholders of each company agreed to merge. The merger was approved by

1770-613: The Tonawanda Railroad was authorized to build the connection, and it opened later that year. The Albany and Schenectady Railroad bought all the baggage, mail and emigrant cars of the other railroads between Albany and Buffalo on February 17, 1848, and began operating through cars. On December 7, 1850, the Tonawanda Railroad and Attica and Buffalo Railroad merged to form the Buffalo and Rochester Railroad . A new direct line opened from Buffalo east to Batavia on April 26, 1852, and

1829-606: The United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midwest , along with the intermediate cities of Albany , Buffalo , Cleveland , Cincinnati , Detroit , Rochester and Syracuse . New York Central was headquartered in New York City's New York Central Building , adjacent to its largest station, Grand Central Terminal . The railroad

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1888-597: The Water Level Route, could complete the 960.7-mile trip in 16 hours after its June 15, 1938 streamlining (and did it in 15 1 ⁄ 2 hours for a short period after World War II). Also famous were the NYC's Empire State Express , which traveled from New York City through upstate New York to Buffalo and Cleveland, and the Ohio State Limited , which ran between New York City and Cincinnati. At various times, beginning in 1946 and continuing into

1947-640: The better. Prominent New York Central trains: Trains left from Grand Central Terminal in New York, Weehawken Terminal in Weehawken, New Jersey , South Station in Boston, Cincinnati Union Terminal in Cincinnati, Michigan Central Station in Detroit, St. Louis Union Station , and LaSalle Street Station and Central Station (for some Detroit and CincinnatI trains) in Chicago. The New York Central had

2006-459: The east side of the Hudson River. The Hudson River Railroad was chartered on May 12, 1846, to extend this line south to New York City; the full line opened on October 3, 1851. Prior to completion, on June 1, it leased the Troy and Greenbush. Cornelius Vanderbilt obtained control of the Hudson River Railroad in 1864, soon after he bought the parallel New York and Harlem Railroad . Along the line of

2065-474: The end of 1967, the mileages were 9,696 miles (15,604 km) and 18,454 miles (29,699 km). The Mohawk and Hudson Railroad was the oldest segment of the railroad's merger and was the first permanent railroad in the state of New York and one of the first railroads in the United States . It was chartered in 1826 to connect the Mohawk River at Schenectady to the Hudson River at Albany, providing

2124-418: The equivalent in canal tolls to the state. The Syracuse and Utica Railroad was chartered on May 11, 1836, and similarly had to pay the state for any freight displaced from the canal. The full line opened July 3, 1839, extending the line further to Syracuse via Rome (and further to Auburn via the already-opened Auburn and Syracuse Railroad ). This line was not direct, going out of its way to stay near

2183-471: The first two-thirds of the 20th century, New York Central Railroad had some of the most famous trains in the United States. Its 20th Century Limited ( Century ), begun in 1902, ran between Grand Central Terminal in New York City and LaSalle Street Station in Chicago , and was its most famous train, known for its red carpet treatment and first-class service. Its last run was made on December 2–3, 1967. In

2242-416: The lattice truss has also been constructed using many relatively light iron or steel members. The individual elements are more easily handled by the construction workers, but the bridge also requires substantial support during construction. A simple lattice truss will transform the applied loads into a thrust, as the bridge will tend to change length under load. This is resisted by pinning the lattice members to

2301-492: The line is currently operated as the Falls Road Railroad . The Buffalo and Lockport Railroad was chartered on April 27, 1852, to build a branch of the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls from Lockport towards Buffalo. It opened in 1854, running from Lockport to Tonawanda , where it joined the Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad , opened in 1837, for the rest of the way to Buffalo. The Mohawk Valley Railroad

2360-413: The mainline was extended to the Mohawk River in downtown Schenectady and the Hudson River waterfront in Albany. The Utica and Schenectady Railroad was chartered April 29, 1833; as the railroad paralleled the Erie Canal, it was prohibited from carrying freight . Revenue service began on August 2, 1836, extending the line of the Albany and Schenectady Railroad west from Schenectady along the north side of

2419-600: The mid-1930s, many railroad companies were introducing streamlined locomotives; until the New York Central introduced the Commodore Vanderbilt , all were diesel-electric. The Vanderbilt was the NYC's first streamlined steam locomotive. The railroad hosted the streamlined steam-powered Rexall Train of 1936, which toured 47 states to promote the Rexall chain of drug stores and to provide space for company conventions. The steam-powered Century , which followed

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2478-722: The mid-1950s, the Century and other NYC trains exchanged sleeping cars in Chicago with western trains such as the Super Chief and the City of San Francisco . The cars, which contained roomettes , double bedrooms and drawing rooms , provided through sleeper service between New York City and Los Angeles or San Francisco ( Oakland Pier ). Despite having some of the most modern steam locomotives anywhere, NYC's difficult financial position caused it to convert to more-economical diesel-electric power rapidly. The Boston and Albany line

2537-543: The old line between Depew (east of Buffalo) and Attica was sold to the Buffalo and New York City Railroad on November 1. The line was added to the New York and Erie Railroad system and converted to the Erie's 6 ft ( 1,829 mm ) broad gauge . The Schenectady and Troy Railroad was chartered in 1836 and opened in 1842, providing another route between the Hudson River and Schenectady, with its Hudson River terminal at Troy . The Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad

2596-490: The opening of the Syracuse and Utica Railroad, this formed a complete line from Albany west via Syracuse to Auburn. The Auburn and Rochester Railroad was chartered on May 13, 1836, as a further extension via Geneva and Canandaigua to Rochester , opening on November 4, 1841. The two lines merged on August 1, 1850, to form the rather indirect Rochester and Syracuse Railroad (known later as the Auburn Road ). To fix this,

2655-460: The rest of the line to Attica opened on January 8, 1843. The Attica and Buffalo Railroad was chartered in 1836 and opened on November 24, 1842, running from Buffalo southeast to Attica. When the Auburn and Rochester Railroad opened in 1841, there was no connection at Rochester to the Tonawanda Railroad, but with that exception there was now an all-rail line between Buffalo and Albany. On March 19, 1844,

2714-445: The south bank of the new canal. A bridge was built southeast of downtown, roughly where the old main line crossed the path of the canal, to keep access to and from the southeast. West of downtown, the old main line was abandoned, but a brand-new railroad line was built, running north from the NYC main line to the NYC's former Rome, Watertown and Ogdensburg Railroad , allowing all NYC through traffic to bypass Rome. Steam locomotives of

2773-467: The state legislature on April 2 and, on May 17, 1853, the New York Central Railroad was formed. Soon the Buffalo and State Line Railroad and Erie and North East Railroad converted to 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) standard gauge from 6 ft ( 1,829 mm ) broad gauge and connected directly with the railroad in Buffalo, providing a through route to Erie, Pennsylvania . The Rochester and Lake Ontario Railroad

2832-573: The top and bottom chords, which are more substantial than the lattice members, but which may also be fabricated from relatively small elements rather than large beams. The Belfast truss is a cross between Town's lattice truss and the bowstring truss . It was developed in Ireland as a wide-span shallow rise roof truss for industrial structures. McTear & Co of Belfast , Ireland began fabricating these trusses in wood starting around 1866. By 1899, spans of 24 metres (79 ft) had been achieved, and in

2891-477: Was awarded to Bob Smith Construction of Trussville, Alabama . The Easley Covered Bridge would be the second of the three to be restored. Wooden structural pieces were repaired or replaced as needed and new tin roofs were put on all three bridges in order to keep the weather off vital supporting timbers. Total restoration costs for the covered bridges was approximately $ 540,000. The difference was covered by county expenditures. Following necessary repairs and upgrades,

2950-712: Was chartered in 1851. The first stage opened in 1853 from Canandaigua on the Auburn Road west to Batavia on the main line. A continuation west to North Tonawanda opened later that year and, in 1854, a section opened in Niagara Falls connecting it to the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge . New York Central Railroad bought the company at bankruptcy in 1858 and reorganized it as the Niagara Bridge and Canandaigua Railroad, merging it into itself in 1890. The Saratoga and Hudson River Railroad

3009-467: Was chartered in 1864 and opened in 1866 as a branch of the railroad from Athens Junction, southeast of Schenectady, southeast and south to Athens on the west side of the Hudson River. On September 9, 1876, the company was merged into the railroad, but in 1876 the terminal at Athens burned down and the line was abandoned. The primary repair shops were established in Corning's hometown of Albany along with

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3068-502: Was chartered in 1869 and opened in 1871, providing a route on the north side of the Harlem River for trains along the Hudson River to head southeast to the New York and Harlem Railroad. Trains could head toward Grand Central Depot , built by NYC and opened in 1871, or to the freight facilities at Port Morris . From opening, it was leased by the NYC. The Geneva and Lyons Railroad was organized in 1877 and opened in 1878, leased by

3127-467: Was chartered on January 21, 1851, and reorganized on December 28, 1852, to build a railroad on the south side of the Mohawk River from Schenectady to Utica, next to the Erie Canal and opposite the Utica and Schenectady. The company didn't build a line before it was absorbed, though the West Shore Railroad was later built on that location. The Syracuse and Utica Direct Railroad was chartered in 1853 to rival

3186-482: Was completely dieselized by 1951. All lines east of Cleveland, Ohio were dieselized between August 7, 1953 (east of Buffalo) and September 1953 (Cleveland-Buffalo). Niagaras were all retired by July 1956. On May 3, 1957, H7e class 2-8-2 Mikado type steam locomotive No. 1977 is reported to have been the last steam locomotive to retire from service on the railroad. But, the economics of northeastern railroading became so dire that not even this switch could change things for

3245-446: Was established in 1853, consolidating several existing railroad companies. In 1968, the NYC merged with its former rival, the Pennsylvania Railroad , to form Penn Central . Penn Central went into bankruptcy in 1970 and, with extensive Federal government support, emerged as Conrail in 1976. In 1999, Conrail was broken-up, and portions of its system were transferred to CSX and Norfolk Southern Railway (NS), with CSX acquiring most of

3304-441: Was organized in 1852 and opened in fall 1853; it was leased to the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad , which became part of New York Central Railroad, before opening. In 1855, it was merged into the railroad, providing a branch from Rochester north to Charlotte on Lake Ontario . The Buffalo and Niagara Falls Railroad was also merged into the railroad in 1855. It had been chartered in 1834 and opened in 1837, providing

3363-422: Was originally incorporated on April 24, 1834, to run from Lockport on the Erie Canal west to Niagara Falls ; the line opened in 1838 and was sold on June 2, 1850. On December 14, 1850, it was reorganized as the Rochester, Lockport and Niagara Falls Railroad, and an extension east to Rochester opened on July 1, 1852. The railroad was consolidated into the New York Central Railroad under the act of 1853. A portion of

3422-551: Was switched out from steam to electric at that point as trains approached New York City. The generally level topography of the NYC system had a character distinctively different from the mountainous terrain of its archrival, the Pennsylvania Railroad. Most of its major routes, including New York to Chicago, followed rivers and had no significant grades other than West Albany Hill and the Berkshire Hills on

3481-591: Was then referred to as the Big Four Route. In 1930, New York Central Railroad acquired a 99-year lease of both Michigan Central and the ''Big Four'' (Cleveland, Chicago Cincinnati & St. Louis Railroad). The back shops at West Albany, New York were unable to keep up with repairs to rolling stock, so additional shops were established east of Buffalo at Depew (1892), Croton-on-Hudson (Harmon Shops, 1907), and Oak Grove, Pennsylvania (Avis Shops, 1902). The Harmon Shops were particularly important as locomotive power

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