W.W.&F. Discussion Forum
General Topics => General Discussion => Topic started by: Benjamin Richards on October 28, 2025, 02:27:40 PM
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Locals are aware of the Frank Wood bridge replacement in Brunswick/Topsham.
Yesterday I noticed a crew excavating the road on the Brunswick side of the new bridge. In the hole were two parallel rusty strips of steel. I immediately suspected streetcar tracks. A bit of internet research today confirmed that while most of the Lewiston-Brunswick-Bath trolley line was ripped up for scrap during the Second World War, the tracks on the bridge itself and the approaches were simply paved over, being set in concrete and therefore too difficult to remove. The trolley and the bridge only coexisted for 5 years, the bridge having been constructed in 1932, and the trolley ceasing operations in 1937.
A pile of rail appeared late yesterday. To my uncalibrated eyeball it looked like perhaps 85 lb rail. Further reading suggests it is in fact only 70 lb rail.
The most remarkable aspect for me is just how far down the tracks were. I would guess 18 to 24 inches. That is a lot of layers of asphalt!
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Interesting find. There are many towns and cities in Maine with the same thing hidden in their streets..
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Those layers with uneven removal were one reason for the I35 bridge collapse here in
Minnesota.
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18 or so years ago road crews were tearing up Union St in Augusta, near its intersection with Rt 27/State St (the intersection is where the entrance to the Capitol complex is). They encountered tracks from the Lewiston, Augusta & Waterville street railway. I don't recall seeing any maps of the LA&W having a branch on Union St, so I wondered if it was some kind of stub to get trolleys out of the way.
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James, could that stub track have been a freight spur? Maybe a coal delivery track to the Capitol boiler house?
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Could have been a freight spur. Where the Capitol is on the other (west) side of the street, I doubt a boiler house would have been on the east side. There may have been other government buildings down Union that would take coal.
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In the days before single-ended streetcars, many lines just ended as a stub; streetcars would "change ends" - the motorman would swap poles (if a two-pole car) or swing the pole on a single-pole car to the other end of the car to head back the way it came. Another possibility could have been a stub to hold extra cars for afternoon rush hour or as a layover during special, high-capacity events.
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MDOT moved the pile of rail to a more convenient location so I grabbed a photo of it. Note the sharply curved tracks.
(https://i.postimg.cc/ZYcYbzrm/20251106-092803.jpg)
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This photo from circa 1932 just came up in my Facebook feed...
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I was going to say IF those were Street Car tracks it looked to be abandon.
Hard to see if there were flange ways. But if that is 1932 maybe the trolly wire was not
erected yet.
What are the year of the cars?
There appears to be a pedestrian on the outside walkway.
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Great photo. The 1966 book "Trolleys to Brunswick, Maine 1896-1937" has a photo of a streetcar travelling down Maine Street in Brunswick in late spring or summer 1937, so if it's post abandonment I would guess that photo dates no earlier than 1938. But the supports that held the wire overhead on the bridge appear to be missing in the "circa 1932" photo, and there don't seem to be any late 1930's vehicles in the picture, so maybe it is a 1932 photo and the trolley line is still under construction on the new bridge?
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... so maybe it is a 1932 photo and the trolley line is still under construction on the new bridge?
On the one hand, the bridge and its accoutrements look pristine. Nothing is beat up, bent, or out of place.
On the other hand, the window during which the bridge was open to auto traffic, but without streetcar infrastructure would seem to be quite brief.
"The World may never know!"
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Have learned to not trust the word "circa". It's a fancy term for wild a_ _ guess. What might it be based on? The autos may be "circa" 1932, I can tell you they're definitely no newer. But the photo could be 1942 if that car is still on the road 10 years later.
Tracks. Autos and standard gauge track share approximately the same wheel base width. When compared to the autos in the photo, those "tracks" look pretty wide to me. They may just be edging on the borders of the concrete fill poured over the old real tracks. I think the photo was taken long after the last trolley crossed that bridge. I love Industrial Archaeology!
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Earl,
It was suggested to me once that "circa" is in fact an acronym meaning "cause it's really clear almost". So, I've always kept that non-standard version in the back of my mind when using the word. For some reason, I also think of the meanings of the acronyms Fubar and Snafu.
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Good ol' Wikipedia.... Here's some excerpts from their very good article on the Frank J. Wood bridge - "The Topsham-Brunswick Bridge, the sixth bridge, was constructed in 1897 using stronger iron; however, it was deemed unusable in 1927 after a trolley jumped its tracks and destroyed some of its supports. The Frank J. Wood Bridge opened in 1932 and was the seventh bridge to occupy the location...... In 1931, the state of Maine commissioned Boston Bridge Works, to construct a new bridge over the Androscoggin River to replace the old Topsham-Brunswick Bridge that was deemed unsafe. The bridge was made from 1,500 short tons (1,400 t) of steel, as well as concrete, and was originally constructed with tram rails twenty feet apart....In 1944, the rails from the tram line were paved over with asphalt after the Maine Central Railroad abandoned the tracks in 1937."......
After an initial review of the bridge, in 2016, from MaineDOT and the Federal Highway Administration, stated the bridge would not be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places. in 2017, they reevaluated and determined that the Frank J. Wood Bridge was eligible both as an individual historic place and as part of the Brunswick Commercial Historic District. Eligibility is determined by how important it is to local transportation, specifically because it's connected to regional interurban trolley lines. The Federal Highway Administration stated "While most of the features associated with the interurban line are no longer withstanding, the standard width and height of the bridge, set specifically to accommodate the interurban line, was adequate integrity to convey that significance." I've included a postcard, date unknown which more clearly shows the bridge roadbed before the tracks were covered in 1944. The tracks and the extra bridge reinforcement outboard of them is more clearly shown. These features and the lack of overhead wires dates the image to between 1937 and 1944.
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Don't think that is the same pedestrian as the high angle pic.
Road looks oilier w/ patches - could just be lighting for that.
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No wires in that photo, but you CAN see what I think is the brackets for the catenary.
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Wikipedia article notes the bridge was designed for use by auto and interurban. So, while the wire would have scrap value any supporting overhead brackets, etc designed into the original structure would most likely have been riveted in place and were probably left there.