I'm pretty close to the action up here and can contribute a little to this.

One of the underlying problems of spending any money on the bridge is that whatever you rebuild is no longer 'historic'. It may be a recreation, but it's not historic. That creates all kinds of philisophical problems beyond the simple economics.

The steam locomotives involved in the Kane fire have not been evaluated for damage yet, but that is still a personal decision by the Cornell family on what to do next. It was arson, and it even appears that it may be related to metals theft, so let that be a warning to everyone.

I really miss the bridge and the K&K, but I also travel all over the US and see things that are still very much still there, and very much still worth saving. Quick; would you rather see $40 million spent on putting the Kinzua Viaduct/K&K back up, or toward the EBT? Same state, same budget. Both rural. Similar private-public relationships that can be problematic.

As far as for bridges, the last one I saw that just took my breath away that is very much still there, and amazingly ignored by the public in general is Youngs High Bridge near Lexington, KY. That's just an amazing structure, it is as big and scary and incredible as Kinzua, it seemingly has no push for it, and it still has an excursion railroad on one end (Bluegrass Scenic). Honestly? Kinzua is gone, Youngs is still there, and should be a National Engineering Landmark as well.

http://www.worldtimzone.com/railtrail/youngshighbridge/

It's within 18 feet of the height of Kinzua, and there's a very special terror to a pin-connected 500'+ free-span cantilever over a real river. Having been on both, Youngs won the 'holy $##!!' contest for me.

Don't fault the locals for at least trying on Kinzua though. For decades the bridge was the anchor store, it's gone, and the impacts of loosing the bridge and the railroad have really made an economic impact and we've even seen it here 50 miles away.

Once you take government money you have to play by government rules. At least 15 years ago now in the Poughkeepsie Bridge saga the Coast Guard was pushing for it to be torn down as a navigation hazard. One of their big complaints was the lack of working navigation lights on the mid-river piers. The Coast Guard estimated it would cost $1 million to restore the lighting system. At the time the renegade group "caring" for the bridge (it may have been an earlier version of the current "Walkways" group) went to the local electrical supply store and bought about $2000 worth of lighting, wire, conduit, etc. and got the navigation lighting working! Shortly after that the Coast Guard decided blowing up the bridge would do more harm than good.

Randy -

I too have seen Youngs High Bridge and my reaction was the same as yours! That this bridge, not updated since it was built in the late 1800's, is basically ignored, is unbelievable as far as I'm concerned. Why it doesn't have National Engineering Landmark status is a complete mystery to me.

You mention the Bluegrass Railroad Museum being on one end. It IS true that BGRM's trackage runs right up to the bridge itself, but at least two out-of-service trestles over county roads have prevented Bluegrass from running up to the bridge for a number of years now. And going up to the bridge, with a stop for viewing by passengers, would probably help museum ridership, and promote proper recognition for the bridge.

Hopefully, something will be done in the meantime to get some basic work done on Youngs High Bridge. We have lost Kinzua; let's not lose another prize.

Les

Was the Poughkeepsie bridge double tracked? (I honestly don't know.) If it was, I would imagine it was designed for two trains to be on it at the same time. If it were restored as a single track bridge, that should take care of the heavier trains of today.

It's single track.

Quick; would you rather see $40 million spent on putting the Kinzua Viaduct/K&K back up, or toward the EBT? Same state, same budget. Both rural. Similar private-public relationships that can be problematic.

Theres the rub, there's always "opportunity cost". I'd vote for EBT.

Unfortunately, this is not that valid a comparison.

Certainly, I would much rather that $40 million go towards securing a long-term future for the EBT. But the reality is that we are not "robbing Joe to pay Paul;" rather, Paul is (in this hypothetical example) convincing someone else to give him money that Joe has adamantly turned down.

In the game of political money, no one sets aside $XXXX to go to railroad preservation; rather, advocates have to go and lobby to convince the Powers That Be (be it government, charities, philanthropists, or the public) that their cause is worthy of having money spent on it. Jim Boyd loudly pointed out that no Federal monies that were spent on Steamtown in Scranton were taken from other worthy rail preservation projects; rather, the politicians in Scranton and Pennsylvania effectively "created" the money thus spent by getting the Feds to appropriate it. Similarly, the monies spent on PRR 1361 were not, say, diverted from the restoration of B&LE 643, or a Reading T1, or even PRR 643.

Do you want to learn from some of "the masters" of creating political expenditures where they weren't there before? Go look at one of our arch-nemesis obstacles: the rails-to-trails lobbyists/movement. Look and learn, or perish.

Well, in most of these, be they funded by a partial state grant, SAFETEA, or whatever, there is a substantial local match. Very few if any Federal grants are 100% of a project cost. Given that the average is probably 20% or higher, it brings the opportunity cost (even a low percent) home in a hurry to local interests, and sometimes, individual donations as in the case of some steam locomotive restoration efforts.

So erase a few zeroes and think of YOUR personal match and how you would want to see it spent; when it comes down to the local match there really is a 'what do we spend it on' decision. As the quote says, in the end, all politics are local. And sometimes that's the only time when reality sets in.

There's an adjacent county in PA that was handed that exact situation to preserve a rail line very directly with a 50% emergency state grant out of what was basically emergency funding on an overnight basis - but the county and locals voted with their feet. The railroad was scrapped. Yes, millions would have been spent, but it wasn't a unilateral support decision.