1925 Road and 1911 Railroad Bascule Bridges in Ashtabula, OH:

Road: (Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; Satellite, 79+ photos)
Railroad: (Bridge Hunter; Historic Bridges; Flickrs: Todd, Greg; Satellite)

Josh Schmid, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)
View from northwest

Josh Schmid, License: Creative Commons Attribution-Share-Alike (CC BY-SA)
Partially open bridge from northwest

When I searched for Ashtabula to check out what was left of the NYC/LS&MS ore docks, Google Maps offered the following as the "signature" photo for the town.

Harish Mukundan

This looked similar to a Strauss heel-trunnion bascule bridge design, but there were enough differences that I suspected it was designed by someone else and the differences avoided patent infringement. Sure enough, Bridge Hunter indicates the "Patent Engineer/Design" is Thomas Ellis Brown. And Historic Bridges indicates it is one of the few surviving Brown type bascule bridges left in the country, and the only one in Ohio.

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(Update: The 1911 Bridge Hunter page for the Duwamish River Bridge was my source concerning Strauss' earlier design.)
The railroad bridge may have been owned by a terminal railroad that allowed NYC, NKP and Pennsy to access the ore docks. The bridge is an early Strauss heel-trunnion design. And, unlike other early designs I have seen, this 1911 bridge has not been converted to Strauss' later design. This early design has the machinery room on top of the movable span and the operating strut is fixed to the counterweight tower. By 1919, Strauss had moved the machinery room to the counterweight tower and fixed the operating strut to the movable span. Below is a closeup of the two bridges on the South Branch of the Chicago River that have the modern design. I highlighted the operating strut of the near bridge, which is closed, in red and the strut of the far bridge, which is open, in yellow. You can see that the strut comes out the back of the tower as the bridge is raised. That photo allows you to compare the modern design with the earlier design still used in this bridge.

20150513 1427, cropped plus Paint

In this earlier design, the strut moves into the span. And you can see the machinery house on top of the movable span.

Bridge Hunter plus Paint

Bridge Hunter plus Paint

Bridge Hunter plus Paint

Walter Gunter posted
N&S Drawbridge. Ashtabula harbor. N.E. Ohio.
Walter Gunter Worked as a Conrail brakeman in the mid 70s . We moved alot of coal & ore over it.Mike Shinsky I was there this summer the yard is for mostly stone now.

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