Delair Bridge

The Delair Bridge (officially the Delair Memorial Railroad Bridge) is a railroad bridge with a vertical-lift section that crosses the Delaware River between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and Pennsauken Township, New Jersey, just south of the Betsy Ross Bridge. The two-track bridge is part of Conrail Shared Assets Operations and is jointly used by Norfolk Southern Railway and CSX Transportation freight trains, as well as by the New Jersey Transit Atlantic City Line service. History The Delair Bridge, built by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1895–1896, was the first bridge of any sort between Philadelphia and New Jersey. The steel span connected PRR tracks in North Philadelphia to southern New Jersey. It consisted of three fixed Pennsylvania truss spans and a through-truss swing-span drawbridge totaling . Approach trestles of on the Pennsylvania side and on the New Jersey side bring its total length to . Starting in 1958, the PRR converted the bridge into a vertical-lift span to increase clearance for river traffic. The movable link was floated into place in one piece to facilitate installation and minimize delay. Work was completed in 1960. The Delair Bridge was the longest and heaviest double-track lift bridge in the world at the time. Note that the single-track Cape Cod Canal Railroad Bridge is longer.