Today in History—March 8: A Ride to Write Home About
On this day in 1855, a train went over a bridge. Interested yet? No?
Let’s try that again. On this day in 1855, one of the heaviest trains in the world went over a brand-new suspension bridge—above a 200-foot-deep gorge.
In the 19th century suspension bridges were pretty unpopular—and for good reason. The world’s first railway suspension bridge (across the River Tees in England) had opened in 1830 to utter disaster. Pillars cracked; attachments snapped, and the deck swayed and shook. The middle of the bridge buckled so badly that the first train to cross it essentially split in half. “Suspension bridge” became synonymous with “bad idea.”
Could Americans succeed where the British had failed? The Great Western Railway thought so and set its sights on a suspension bridge spanning the Niagara River gorge, one side on American soil and the other Canadian. They hired engineer Charles Ellet.
“To build a bridge at Niagara has long been a favorite scheme of mine,” Ellet wrote. “Some twelve years ago I went to inspect the location…and I have never lost sight of the project since.”
Ellet’s chapter of this story is peppered with some spectacular moments—he started out by promising $5 to any child who could fly a kite over the gorge and secure it to the other side, thus charting the path for his cables—but what you really need to know is this: In 1848 Ellet’s bridge opened.
Mark Twain hated the bridge, describing the crossing as “divid[ing] your misery between the chances of smashing down 200 feet into the river below, and the chances of having the railway-train overhead smashing down onto you.”
Soon, though, Ellet himself was underwater. He started charging pedestrians for crossing the bridge—without the approval of his bosses. Ellet was ousted and replaced with engineer John Roebling, who kicked off an ambitious phase two: a double-decker bridge with a railway above and pedestrian traffic below.
After about five years of work, Roebling was ready to test his bridge. He arranged for a 23-ton locomotive—one of the largest and heaviest trains of its time—to cross the 825-foot-long bridge at a speed of eight miles per hour.
The locomotive and its staff ultimately made it across the bridge—no cracking, snapping, or swaying in sight.
A few days later it officially opened to the public. And for the next 25 years, about 50 trains crossed it every single week.
- $5: Fee incurred by horses cantering over the bridge (rather than walking)
- 120: Strands of wire in each of the bridge’s cables
- $450,000: Total cost to make the bridge
- 1702: Queen Anne ascends to the British throne
- 1950: The first Volkswagen van goes into production
- 2014: Malaysia Airlines flight 370 disappears on its way to Beijing