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Bridge with single deck for both rail and road traffic.
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<p>[quote user="CShaveRR"]Across the waterway between Houghton and Hancock, Michigan (on the Keewenaw Peninsula, in da Yoo-Pee), is a double-deck lift bridge. The lower deck has a railroad track (probably now abandoned--Soo Line at one time, I'm sure) and a roadway; the upper deck has a roadway. The bridge can be lifted to the point where the lower deck becomes the upper deck roadway, or raised completely above both levels. I'm not wording this well, but I hope you can follow it). I'm sure that at one time drivers had to share the lower deck with the trains fairly regularly.[/quote]</p><p>I have been across that Keewenaw bridge a million times, but never thought much about its functionality. When the bridge was fully down, the railroad deck was on the bottom and the road deck was above. It could be raised for some clearance without blocking the road traffic by lifting the railroad deck up to the level of the road. This would block railroad passage, but that was infrequent compared to the demand of road traffic, which could continue by using the railroad deck. For maximum clearance, the two decks were raised way up, thus blocking the passage of both trains and road traffic.</p><p>I am not sure if there was ever a second roadway that could use the railroad deck when the decks were fully lowered. Certainly the deck that carried the railroad could accommodate road traffic since it was indentical to the upper deck except for the addition of rails.</p><p>This raises a question: Since the railroad is gone from the area and traffic is reaching capacity at times between Houghton and Hancock (the towns on either side of the bridge), I wonder if planners are considering adding a second road to connect with the lower deck, and making each deck a one-way thoroughfare.</p><p>The old Minneapolis Northfield & Southern railroad swing bridge over the Minnesota River at Savage, MN was shared with the road. I don't quite recall the terms, but the trains and the road vehicles could not be on the bridge at the same time. I am not sure what exists there today.</p>
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