The Fort Madison Toll Bridge (also known as the Santa Fe Swing Span Bridge for the old Santa Fe rail line) is a tolled, swinging truss bridge over the Mississippi River that connects Fort Madison, Iowa and unincorporated Niota, Illinois. Rail traffic occupies the lower deck of the bridge, while two lanes of road traffic occupy the upper deck. It is widely considered the longest double-deck swing-span bridge in the world. Completed in 1927, it replaced an inadequate combination roadway/single-track bridge completed in 1887. The main river crossing consists of four 270-foot (82Â m) through truss spans and a swing span made of two equal arms, 266 feet (81Â m) long. In 1999, it was listed in the National Register of Historic Places under the title, Fort Madison Bridge, structure #99001035. It was also documented by the Library of Congress Historic American Engineering Record, survey number HAER IA-62. Construction and photographic details were recorded at the time in Scientific American magazine.
The bridge is the eastern terminus of Iowa Highway 2, and the western terminus of Illinois Route 9. Iowa 2 runs westwards towards Farmington, Iowa (23 miles/37Â km), while Illinois 9 continues eastwards towards Canton, Illinois (~80Â mi/129Â km) and Peoria (~100 miles/162Â km). On July 26, 1927, operations were transferred from the original single track bridge to the current bridge. The first opening for river traffic occurred at 11:58Â a.m. on July 26, 1927, for the scow C. W. Howell traveling downriver with no barges attached.
The bridge is privately owned by BNSF Railway and is the river crossing for the Southern Transcon, BNSF's Chicago to Southern California main line. About 100 trains are hosted daily on this bridge. Amtrak's Southwest Chief crosses the bridge with one eastbound train in the morning and one westbound train in the evening. The station is two miles (3Â km) to the west of the bridge.
Per Coast Guard regulations and the BNSF Fort Madison River Bridge operations manual, river traffic has the right-of-way over train and vehicle traffic on the bridge. The length of time for an opening varies due to weather, river current, size and number of boats, and occasional mechanical problems. A typical opening for a tow with 15 barges will take 15 to 20 minutes. The bridge logs over 2000 openings per year, an average of more than 5 per day.
Automobile traffic
The upper deck of the Fort Madison Toll Bridge is not closed to automobile traffic as of 2015. It is closed to semi truck traffic.
See also
- List of crossings of the Upper Mississippi River
- List of road-rail bridges
References
- Historic American Engineering Record (Library of Congress) Survey number HAER IA-62
- Weeks, John. "Fort Madison/Niota Toll Bridge". Retrieved January 18, 2006.Â
- "Crews Tackle Mississippi River Bridge Work". BNSF. October 10, 2005. Archived from the original on 2006-06-03.Â
