Walkway Over the Hudson State Park

00:00 On the deck.

00:17 Push the button before leaping.

00:34 Mid Hudson Highway Bridge. Loop trail over both bridges. The Mid Hudson path is outside the suspenders. Sensation is like walking on air. Passing truck or bus stretches the suspenders dropping the walkway. The walkway bounces back. Suspender stretching and compression thrills un-motorized traffic over this bridge.

01:22 Early morning week day. Deck is crowded on week ends.

01:53 Amtrak at the Poughkeepsie RR Station. The classy NYC Poughkeepsie station is out of site on the left. Poughkeepsie is the last stop for Metro North commuter trains out of Grand Central.

02:20 Riverside Church has the Flying Buttress. Here is the Poughkeepsie RR Bridge flying Cantilever-Truss.

02:36 Bessemer Mild Steel is a super cooled liquid. The Poughkeepsie RR Bridge of tomorrow.

I lived at the Poughkeepsie end of this bridge during its low life period. The blackberries growing out of roadbed were incredible. Challenges like thorns, tangles of gas pipe installed to throw switches at a switch tower reduced to a concrete pad, made berries taste better. Had a long lunch hour the day the bridge burned. Could not use NYS 9 back to work because of burning debris falling on the road.

Great to see this great bridge back in use. ConRail chose not to repair the bridge after the fire. Reasoning was that more route miles generated by sending traffic north to Albany and South again to southern New England would generate more route mile revenue. More revenue was generated -- for trucks. More sleaze about the low life years of the Poughkeepsie RR bridge is in the Wikipedia article.

None of the supposed regulating authorities corrected ConRail. The ROW into Harlem Valley was used to ease the grade and curves of NYS 55 into the valley. Around 1995, the RR overpass in Arlington was removed to aide the flow of the increased truck traffic.

Poughkeepsie RR Bridge was the only profitable part of the New Haven system, the piece that kept New Haven RR solvent. The beautiful Hell Gate complex of Astoria, Queens, NYC, does not produce profit.

Design by MacDonald and Paine. Build by Union Bridge Co. Opens, 1889. Double track cantilever and truss design. Strengthened by Ralph Modjeski, of Modjeski and Masters in 1912. Gantlet track 1917. Single track 1959. Fire 1974. Walkway opens Oct 2009 with Singer Pete Seeger. 415,000 visitors the remaining 3 months of 2009, more than twice the planned number. Crowd management issues May 2010.

Category:

Travel & Events

Tags:

• Poughkeepsie
• highland
• ny
• nys
• new york
• nysp
• new york state park
• walkway over the Hudson
• Hudson river
• new haven
• cantilever
• railroad
• rr
• rail line
• bridge route
• gantlet track
• modjeski
• penn central
• conrail
• truss
• macdonald
• paine
• union bridge
• frick
• Carnegie
• Bessemer process
• pevsner
• walkway corporation
• central Hudson
• Gordon miller

[PhilbruProduction]

Very interesting and beautiful landscapes John .. Bravo for special effects. Philippe

[gjhgjh]

@PhilbruProduction You are welcome Philippe and thanks for your input on the effects.

[gjhgjh]

This was shot last Sept. Yes it was a beautiful day. Poughkeepsie gets snow, sometimes lots of snow. Here in Arizona our desert is broken today, rain, cooler than usual. Thanks

[wakingplanet]

Even Poughkeepsie looks lovely and quaint from up there!

[gjhgjh]

@wakingplanet Yes. The deck is bucolic even with heavy traffic. I think it will take busiest path title from the MinuteMan trail in MA. The 4 mile path extension on Highland side opened last Oct. After a 1/4 mile break path from Morgan Lake ice pond on Dutchess Cty, Pokey, side is open another few miles.

[JeffersonLambert]

Nice job. Great video.

[gjhgjh]

@JeffersonLambert Thank you Jefferson

[trainfart]

Very interesting excursion! Beautiful sunny day! :)

We got some snow today!

[gjhgjh]

@WoelkerVideo Thank you Gunter

[WoelkerVideo]

Excellent video.

Very interesting.