[BRIEF NOTE] Water under the bridge

[rfmcdonald]

bridgepilings2
Originally uploaded by rfmcdpei

The City of Charlottetown's page on the Hillsborough River Bridge, not only the surviving one but the surpassed one with the pilings still in the water, is succinct.

The first Hillsborough Bridge was constructed as a railway link to the southeastern part of the Island, although it was also a carriage bridge, too. The steel structure consisted of 12 spans. To facilitate river traffic it had a swing span over the deepest water. The bridge opened with great celebration in 1905 and served the communities on the Murray Harbour Line well until the mid 1950’s when it was judged unsafe for the trains. For the next twelve years, it served only automobile traffic. A new structure was opened in 1962, and more recently that bridge has been expanded and now accommodates four lanes of traffic coming to and from the Capital City.

Wikipedia's page is much more complete, describing the transportation imperatives and political complications attending Charlottetown's need for, first, a land connection to southeastern Prince Edward Island and the Nova Scotia ferry, then for a direct link to what is now the (relatively) substantial suburb of Stratford.

By the time that the Hillsborough River (Wikipedia, Encyclopedia of Earth) makes it down to the point of either the defunct or the current bridge, it is no longer a fresh-water stream but a tidewater inlet, barred from direct entry to the Northumberland Strait by Charlottetown Harbour.