Hillsborough River Bridge
Encyclopedia
The Hillsborough River Bridge refers to two separate Canadian
bridge
s which crossed the Hillsborough River
estuary between Charlottetown
and Stratford
in Queens County, Prince Edward Island
.
(PEIR) constructed a railway bridge across the river, allowing for train travel to the eastern side.
The Prince Edward Island Railway had constructed a railway line from Southport (now part of Stratford) to Murray Harbour
. Like all of the other lines on the Island at the time, the line was built using the narrow gauge
of 3 feet 6 inches. The last remaining link in this line involved crossing the Hillsborough River to Charlottetown.
The Intercolonial Railway was a sister company to the PEIR in the neighbouring Maritime provinces
and Quebec
. Like the PEIR, it was owned by the Government of Canada and it was upgrading its mainline through northeastern New Brunswick
to handle heavier locomotives and rail cars. The Intercolonial Railway crossed the Southwest Miramichi River
and Northwest Miramichi River
between Nelson and Newcastle
using two iron bridges set upon stone piers, as designed by engineer-in-chief Sir Sandford Fleming
.
These spans were considered surplus after their heavier replacements were installed, thus the federal government decided to salvage the structure for use on the PEIR's line to Murray Harbour. Both bridges, consisting of 12 spans, were transported on barges to Prince Edward Island.
Before installing the structure, the PEIR hauled thousands of rail car loads of soil excavated alongside the railway line east of the St. Dunstan's University campus several miles northwest of the bridge abutment. These railcars were pushed in 10-15 car trains to the waterfront and used to in-fill large areas for expanded rail yards and wharves, as well as to build an approach causeway from the Charlottetown side. A corresponding approach causeway was built on the Southport side using soil excavated along the railway line in Bunbury
east of the bridge.
The remaining gap had 11 stone piers constructed deep into the mud of the Hillsborough River using cofferdam
s and high pressure air, with stone being imported from Nova Scotia
and cemented into place atop the sandstone bedrock beneath the riverbed. The bridge had a motorized swing span in the centre to permit ship traffic to operate upriver on the Hillsborough River, with 2 supporting piers when the span was opened.
The railway bridge saw steady use through to the early 1930s when the PEIR's successor, Canadian National Railways (CNR), completed the conversion of the rail lines in the province from narrow (3 ft 6 in) to standard (4 ft 8.5 in) gauge. The larger dimensions and weight of standard gauge rail cars and locomotives saw the railway's structural engineers deem the railway bridge unsafe, so a bypass route from Mount Stewart Junction
to Lake Verde Junction was built as a depression
-era project.
Following the opening of the "Short Line", all heavy rail traffic bound for Murray Harbour was routed through Mount Stewart. The rails on the Hillsborough River Bridge were standard gauged but only lightweight rail cars and locomotives were permitted to use it, thus its use by CNR declined markedly.
No longer used for rail traffic, CNR wished to rid itself of operating the bridge and tried to get the provincial government to take ownership. The provincial government, which had been getting away with having the federally-owned railway company operate this important bridge for many years, sought to delay any handover and at one point in the early 1950s, CNR engineers barricaded the bridge to public travel, partly out of concern that the bridge was unsafe, and partly to pressure the provincial negotiators.
The provincial government was outraged and Premier J. Walter Jones
staged a publicity stunt at the Charlottetown abutment of the bridge, boarding a bulldozer and demanding in front of local media, that the bridge be reopened.
CNR relented and reopened the bridge, making temporary repairs, however the long-term viability of the bridge, then approaching 85 years of age (when its 30-year service in New Brunswick was taken into account), was in doubt.
network across the country. The Prince Edward Island component was planned between the ferry terminals in Borden and Wood Islands
via Charlottetown.
As part of this national project, an improved crossing of the Hillsborough River was deemed necessary, however it required several years of negotiation over joint federal and provincial funding before construction could begin. A new 2-lane highway bridge opened in 1962 to carry Route 1 over the Hillsborough River parallel to, and immediately upstream of, the single lane railway bridge.
The new bridge used the original soil-infilled approach causeways on both sides of the river that had been used for the railway bridge. Thus, though the span is straight, the overall crossing takes a distinctive curving alignment. The causeways were widened to the Trans-Canada Highway standard width of 3 lanes (2 travel lanes and emergency shoulders) and lengthened to narrow the span to roughly half that of the railway bridge.
The new bridge structure was constructed using structural steel as an arched truss using 2 piers. The emergency shoulders on the bridge structure were occupied by concrete sidewalks.
The original railway bridge immediately downstream of the new highway bridge was dismantled and the iron structure was scrapped, although the stone piers were left in place. These became a nesting site for cormorant
s and tern
s for the next three decades (1960s to 1990s). Ice and wind and wave damage by the turn of the 21st century had caused the majority of the old piers to collapse and are now mostly invisible from the bridge.
) between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Part of the agreement negotiated with the Government of Prince Edward Island provided for a federal-provincial cost-sharing to have Strait Crossing Joint Venture take ownership of and expand the Hillsborough River Bridge from 2 lanes to 4.
This expansion had been studied since the late 1970s when traffic delays began to occur as residential development took place in areas east of Charlottetown, namely the communities of Bunbury
, Southport, Kinlock, Keppoch and Cross Roads, creating changes in commuting patterns. Studies indicated that vehicle counts on the 2-lane bridge were approaching 30,000 trips per day.
SCJV expanded the bridge in 1995, placing additional continuous span girders on each side of the original structure with expanded piers, then removing of the guardrails and concrete sidewalk and bridge deck from the original structure, replacing it with an integrated deck. This work took place without any significant delays or closures. For taxation purposes, the Hillsborough River Bridge structure owned by SCJV is jurisdictionally within the town of Stratford; the municipal boundary between Stratford and Charlottetown is thus located at the western abutment of the bridge on the approach causeway.
abandoned rail service in PEI on December 31, 1989) and intersection with Grafton Street and Riverside Drive. Additional redesign work was undertaken on the Southport side of the bridge to allow for a more efficient traffic flow.
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
bridge
Bridge
A bridge is a structure built to span physical obstacles such as a body of water, valley, or road, for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle...
s which crossed the Hillsborough River
Hillsborough River (Prince Edward Island)
The Hillsborough River, also known as the East River, is a Canadian river in northeastern Queens County, Prince Edward Island.-Battle at Port-la-Joye :...
estuary between Charlottetown
Charlottetown
Charlottetown is a Canadian city. It is both the largest city on and the provincial capital of Prince Edward Island, and the county seat of Queens County. Named after Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, Charlottetown was first incorporated as a town in 1855 and designated as a city in 1885...
and Stratford
Stratford, Prince Edward Island
Stratford is a Canadian suburban town located in central Prince Edward Island.It is situated on a peninsula formed by the Hillsborough River estuary, Charlottetown Harbour, and Hillsborough Bay - a sub-basin of the Northumberland Strait....
in Queens County, Prince Edward Island
Queens County, Prince Edward Island
Queens County is located in central Prince Edward Island, Canada. The county is geographically divided by the Hillsborough River's estuary, a tidal inlet which almost splits the county and Prince Edward Island...
.
First bridge, 1905-1962
The Hillsborough River is a 30 km long and up to 1 km wide tidal inlet which empties into Charlottetown Harbour. During the 1800s, a seasonal passenger ferry service operated between the Charlottetown waterfront and Ferry Point on the opposite side. When the river was frozen in winter, horse-drawn sleighs would cross the ice. In 1905, the Prince Edward Island RailwayPrince Edward Island Railway
The Prince Edward Island Railway was a historic Canadian railway.-Construction:Located wholly within the province of Prince Edward Island, construction of the PEIR started in 1871, financed by the United Kingdom...
(PEIR) constructed a railway bridge across the river, allowing for train travel to the eastern side.
The Prince Edward Island Railway had constructed a railway line from Southport (now part of Stratford) to Murray Harbour
Murray Harbour, Prince Edward Island
Murray Harbour, Prince Edward Island is a Canadian fishing community in southeastern Kings County, Prince Edward Island.Located in the township of Lot 64, the community is named after General the Honourable James Murray, , Governor of Quebec .With an area of 4.1 km2 and an extensive...
. Like all of the other lines on the Island at the time, the line was built using the narrow gauge
Cape gauge
Cape gauge is a track gauge of between the inside of the rail heads and is classified as narrow gauge. It has installations of around .The gauge was first used by Norwegian engineer Carl Abraham Pihl and the first line was opened in 1862.- Nomenclature :...
of 3 feet 6 inches. The last remaining link in this line involved crossing the Hillsborough River to Charlottetown.
The Intercolonial Railway was a sister company to the PEIR in the neighbouring Maritime provinces
Maritimes
The Maritime provinces, also called the Maritimes or the Canadian Maritimes, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. On the Atlantic coast, the Maritimes are a subregion of Atlantic Canada, which also includes the...
and Quebec
Quebec
Quebec or is a province in east-central Canada. It is the only Canadian province with a predominantly French-speaking population and the only one whose sole official language is French at the provincial level....
. Like the PEIR, it was owned by the Government of Canada and it was upgrading its mainline through northeastern New Brunswick
New Brunswick
New Brunswick is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the only province in the federation that is constitutionally bilingual . The provincial capital is Fredericton and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton is the largest Census Metropolitan Area...
to handle heavier locomotives and rail cars. The Intercolonial Railway crossed the Southwest Miramichi River
Southwest Miramichi River
The Southwest Miramichi River is a Canadian river in New Brunswick.The river has its origin in Carleton County, at Miramichi Lake in the Miramichi Highlands . Its two branches join near the village of Juniper, NB...
and Northwest Miramichi River
Northwest Miramichi River
The Northwest Miramichi River is a Canadian river in New Brunswick. The Mi'kmaq referred to the river as Elmunokun, possibly meaning "a beaver hole" in reference to a deep pool in the river, just below the mouth of the Big Sevogle River, its largest tributary.The Northwest Miramichi River has its...
between Nelson and Newcastle
Newcastle, New Brunswick
Newcastle is a Canadian urban neighbourhood in the city of Miramichi, New Brunswick.Prior to municipal amalgamation in 1995, it was an incorporated town and the shire town of Northumberland County....
using two iron bridges set upon stone piers, as designed by engineer-in-chief Sir Sandford Fleming
Sandford Fleming
Sir Sandford Fleming, was a Scottish-born Canadian engineer and inventor, proposed worldwide standard time zones, designed Canada's first postage stamp, a huge body of surveying and map making, engineering much of the Intercolonial Railway and the Canadian Pacific Railway, and was a founding...
.
These spans were considered surplus after their heavier replacements were installed, thus the federal government decided to salvage the structure for use on the PEIR's line to Murray Harbour. Both bridges, consisting of 12 spans, were transported on barges to Prince Edward Island.
Before installing the structure, the PEIR hauled thousands of rail car loads of soil excavated alongside the railway line east of the St. Dunstan's University campus several miles northwest of the bridge abutment. These railcars were pushed in 10-15 car trains to the waterfront and used to in-fill large areas for expanded rail yards and wharves, as well as to build an approach causeway from the Charlottetown side. A corresponding approach causeway was built on the Southport side using soil excavated along the railway line in Bunbury
Bunbury, Prince Edward Island
Bunbury is a community in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, located within the town of Stratford.Once amalgamated with surrounding areas, the name Bunbury got changed to Stratford.----...
east of the bridge.
The remaining gap had 11 stone piers constructed deep into the mud of the Hillsborough River using cofferdam
Cofferdam
A cofferdam is a temporary enclosure built within, or in pairs across, a body of water and constructed to allow the enclosed area to be pumped out, creating a dry work environment for the major work to proceed...
s and high pressure air, with stone being imported from Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia
Nova Scotia is one of Canada's three Maritime provinces and is the most populous province in Atlantic Canada. The name of the province is Latin for "New Scotland," but "Nova Scotia" is the recognized, English-language name of the province. The provincial capital is Halifax. Nova Scotia is the...
and cemented into place atop the sandstone bedrock beneath the riverbed. The bridge had a motorized swing span in the centre to permit ship traffic to operate upriver on the Hillsborough River, with 2 supporting piers when the span was opened.
Impact on travel
The bridge opened in 1905 and immediately revolutionized travel in southeastern Prince Edward Island, allowing narrow gauge passenger and freight trains to operate between Charlottetown and Murray Harbour, as well as pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages and sleighs (and later automobiles) to use the bridge when trains were not crossing; for this purpose, wood planks were placed between and on each side of the rails.The railway bridge saw steady use through to the early 1930s when the PEIR's successor, Canadian National Railways (CNR), completed the conversion of the rail lines in the province from narrow (3 ft 6 in) to standard (4 ft 8.5 in) gauge. The larger dimensions and weight of standard gauge rail cars and locomotives saw the railway's structural engineers deem the railway bridge unsafe, so a bypass route from Mount Stewart Junction
Mount Stewart, Prince Edward Island
Mount Stewart is a Canadian village located in the northeastern part of Queens County, Prince Edward Island.Mount Stewart is located at the head of the once-navigable portion of the Hillsborough River at the point where the river begins to narrow significantly.The village played an important role...
to Lake Verde Junction was built as a depression
Great Depression
The Great Depression was a severe worldwide economic depression in the decade preceding World War II. The timing of the Great Depression varied across nations, but in most countries it started in about 1929 and lasted until the late 1930s or early 1940s...
-era project.
Following the opening of the "Short Line", all heavy rail traffic bound for Murray Harbour was routed through Mount Stewart. The rails on the Hillsborough River Bridge were standard gauged but only lightweight rail cars and locomotives were permitted to use it, thus its use by CNR declined markedly.
Decline
In 1950 CNR structural engineers felt the bridge was unsafe for any rail traffic and the rails were removed while the railway instituted taxi service for passengers travelling to Murray Harbour, allowing them to board passenger trains at its terminus near the bridge abutment in Southport.No longer used for rail traffic, CNR wished to rid itself of operating the bridge and tried to get the provincial government to take ownership. The provincial government, which had been getting away with having the federally-owned railway company operate this important bridge for many years, sought to delay any handover and at one point in the early 1950s, CNR engineers barricaded the bridge to public travel, partly out of concern that the bridge was unsafe, and partly to pressure the provincial negotiators.
The provincial government was outraged and Premier J. Walter Jones
John Walter Jones
John Walter Jones was a politician and farmer in Prince Edward Island, Canada. An agronomist, he was instrumental in introducing the potato crop to the island, which was to become a staple of the economy...
staged a publicity stunt at the Charlottetown abutment of the bridge, boarding a bulldozer and demanding in front of local media, that the bridge be reopened.
CNR relented and reopened the bridge, making temporary repairs, however the long-term viability of the bridge, then approaching 85 years of age (when its 30-year service in New Brunswick was taken into account), was in doubt.
Second bridge, 1962-present
By the mid-1950s, the federal government had begun to develop the Trans-Canada HighwayTrans-Canada Highway
The Trans-Canada Highway is a federal-provincial highway system that joins the ten provinces of Canada. It is, along with the Trans-Siberian Highway and Australia's Highway 1, one of the world's longest national highways, with the main route spanning 8,030 km...
network across the country. The Prince Edward Island component was planned between the ferry terminals in Borden and Wood Islands
Wood Islands, Prince Edward Island
Wood Islands is a Canadian rural farming and fishing community located in southeastern Queens County, Prince Edward Island on the Northumberland Strait....
via Charlottetown.
As part of this national project, an improved crossing of the Hillsborough River was deemed necessary, however it required several years of negotiation over joint federal and provincial funding before construction could begin. A new 2-lane highway bridge opened in 1962 to carry Route 1 over the Hillsborough River parallel to, and immediately upstream of, the single lane railway bridge.
The new bridge used the original soil-infilled approach causeways on both sides of the river that had been used for the railway bridge. Thus, though the span is straight, the overall crossing takes a distinctive curving alignment. The causeways were widened to the Trans-Canada Highway standard width of 3 lanes (2 travel lanes and emergency shoulders) and lengthened to narrow the span to roughly half that of the railway bridge.
The new bridge structure was constructed using structural steel as an arched truss using 2 piers. The emergency shoulders on the bridge structure were occupied by concrete sidewalks.
The original railway bridge immediately downstream of the new highway bridge was dismantled and the iron structure was scrapped, although the stone piers were left in place. These became a nesting site for cormorant
Cormorant
The bird family Phalacrocoracidae is represented by some 40 species of cormorants and shags. Several different classifications of the family have been proposed recently, and the number of genera is disputed.- Names :...
s and tern
Tern
Terns are seabirds in the family Sternidae, previously considered a subfamily of the gull family Laridae . They form a lineage with the gulls and skimmers which in turn is related to skuas and auks...
s for the next three decades (1960s to 1990s). Ice and wind and wave damage by the turn of the 21st century had caused the majority of the old piers to collapse and are now mostly invisible from the bridge.
Widening, 1995
In 1992 the Government of Canada signed an agreement with Strait Crossing Joint Venture (SCJV), an international construction consortium, to build the Northumberland Strait Crossing Project (today known as the Confederation BridgeConfederation Bridge
The Confederation Bridge is a bridge spanning the Abegweit Passage of Northumberland Strait, linking Prince Edward Island with mainland New Brunswick, Canada. It was commonly referred to as the "Fixed Link" by residents of Prince Edward Island prior to its official naming. Construction took place...
) between Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick. Part of the agreement negotiated with the Government of Prince Edward Island provided for a federal-provincial cost-sharing to have Strait Crossing Joint Venture take ownership of and expand the Hillsborough River Bridge from 2 lanes to 4.
This expansion had been studied since the late 1970s when traffic delays began to occur as residential development took place in areas east of Charlottetown, namely the communities of Bunbury
Bunbury, Prince Edward Island
Bunbury is a community in the Canadian province of Prince Edward Island, located within the town of Stratford.Once amalgamated with surrounding areas, the name Bunbury got changed to Stratford.----...
, Southport, Kinlock, Keppoch and Cross Roads, creating changes in commuting patterns. Studies indicated that vehicle counts on the 2-lane bridge were approaching 30,000 trips per day.
SCJV expanded the bridge in 1995, placing additional continuous span girders on each side of the original structure with expanded piers, then removing of the guardrails and concrete sidewalk and bridge deck from the original structure, replacing it with an integrated deck. This work took place without any significant delays or closures. For taxation purposes, the Hillsborough River Bridge structure owned by SCJV is jurisdictionally within the town of Stratford; the municipal boundary between Stratford and Charlottetown is thus located at the western abutment of the bridge on the approach causeway.
Other works
Additional work was undertaken by the provincial government on the approach routes to the span, with additional infilling of Charlottetown Harbour to extend Water Street through the former railway yard (CN RailCanadian National Railway
The Canadian National Railway Company is a Canadian Class I railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec. CN's slogan is "North America's Railroad"....
abandoned rail service in PEI on December 31, 1989) and intersection with Grafton Street and Riverside Drive. Additional redesign work was undertaken on the Southport side of the bridge to allow for a more efficient traffic flow.