If we're talking about the same one, it was still there last week.
I like how the picture of the "Canal Street Railroad Bridge" Wikipedia uses actually shows an Amtrak train, complete with a number of Amtrak Express cars in tow, about to cross the bridge. Something of a historical shot from the year 1999.
I just did a bit of surfing Wikipedia, and found the bridge I referred to is the (abandoned) Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad Bridge, just north of the St. Charles Air Line railroad bridge that is used by Amtrak CONO.
I was lucky enough to cross this bridge twice within the last 8 days on ky DEN-GBB roundtrip. Nice bridge! I wanted to go to GBB for the museum but it was closed. Next time I go to the Quad Cities area by train I'll go to Burlington so I can see the bridge.
Yep, here's a picture that I took of it in 2010:
That is the Moodna Viaduct.
One simple example: The Oakland end of the Bay Bridge is being replaced at the age of 75 and has probably never had its full design load applied. In general a highwway bridge design load is bumper to bumper trucks in all lanes. For the bay bridge, it may have been six lanes of automobiles on the upper deck and three lanes of trucks and two tracks of interuban cars on the lower deck. The Memphis Bridge, commonly called the Frisco Bridge is a 119 years old single track railroad bridge carrying loads that were beyond the range of George Morison's (the designer) worst nightmare. (When opened it was test loaded by a solid train of the heaviest steam locomotives they could get. However, this string consisted of 2-6-0 and 4-4-0 locomotives with four axle tenders, far lighter than then the modern coal trains and double stack container trains that go across it today. Did I mention that it was the first bridge across the lower Mississippi and for a while had the longest span of any bridge in the US.
Worked in Wilkes Barre and after (20) years living in Poconos, PA and then retired to Las Vegas. Had wife's friend/daughter visit us from Florida and we went on the excursion ride from Steamtown National Historic Site(Scranton, PA). You go for about a hour and a half one way and then return thus crossing the bridge at Nicholson twice. On the way up we STOPPED on the bridge. I about wet my pants as I am afraid of heights. This from a guy who enjoys riding in small airplanes. I HAD to look out the open window. Oh my God was that scary. We stopped for about (5) minutes.That is the Moodna Viaduct.
The same route further up has the Starucca Viaduct which is a spectacular stone arch bridge.
On the parallel Lackawanna route there are four rather remarkable early concrete arch bridges worthy of mention. The largest of them all is the Tunkhannock or Nicholson Viaduct on the Halstead Cutoff...
The three lesser ones of similar design going south/east to north/west are the Paulin's Kill Viadact in NJ on the Lackawanna Cutoff, The Delaware River Viaduct across the Delaware near Slateford PA, and the one on the Halstead Cutoff north of Nicholson that crosses a creek and Route 11. All of them were state of the art poured concrete arch bridges and when built the Paulin's Kill and the Tunkhannock were the largest such in the world - a testimony to the engineering prowess of the Delaware Lackawanna and Western Railroad.
At present the Halstead Cutoff is part of CP's Class 1 NAFTA route connecting Montreal to Wilkes-Barre and then on to Harrisburg. Every year it hosts the Amtrak special on its way to Steamtown in Scranton. The special runs from Albany via Binghamton to Scranton on CP.
The Lackawanna Cutoff in NJ is slowly getting service restored by NJ Transit and there are plans to eventually get passenger service up and running from New York to Scranton, and possibly even Binghamton over the Halstead Cutoff. NJTransit serves the Erie Line under contract from MNRR on its Port Jervis route, which suffered major washouts from Hurricane Irene and is slated to have service restored on Nov 28th.
