Back Cove Bridge

I know the Back Cove bridge in Portland, ME was burned in the mid 80's, halting traffic on the Grand Trunk Route. Who was it (if known) that burned the bridge?

supposedly the fire was set by vandals. not clear if they were ever identified apprehended or whatever. Whoever did it, it was generally reckoned to have ulimately benefitting both cn and the city of portland.

The rumor was a torch crew from Canada but you know that was about 30 years ago now so what does it matter

Safetee wrote:supposedly the fire was set by vandals. not clear if they were ever identified apprehended or whatever. Whoever did it, it was generally reckoned to have ulimately benefitting both cn and the city of portland.

Why did it benefit CN?

Because maintaining access to the Portland waterfront was costing them money. Losing the bridge gave them the impetus they needed to abandon that part of the line. it didn't hurt that MDOT had, or was going to, upgrade(d) Danville Junction as part of the "rip the tracks out of Commercial St." project.

I've wondered why they didn't retreat to E. Deering earlier. Granted, it would have been burdensome pre-Staggers, but they hadn't had significant traffic in Portland for years. (Some flour business is all that comes to mind.)

In later years of operation from Portland the daily Grand Trunk/CN freight to Montreal usually left town with just a handful of cars (sometimes just one or two) behind three M420s, picking up most of its train at Danville Junction and points north. The PT street trackage on Commercial Street had already been superceded by Danville Jct. as the interchange route for B&M/GT connecting traffic, such as it was by the then, and terminating/originating business was minimal. While the bridge fire brought an abrupt end to GT/CN service in downtown Portland, my guess is that the basically empty GT yard would have been gone a few years later anyway, especially once the waterfront revitalization movement kicked in.

On the hirail trip that CN put on for prospective GTE buyers, when they were asked when the bridge was likely going to be rebuilt, the quick reply was, "It's not going to be rebuilt". The unannounced reasoning was that by separating the Portland piece from the rest, they were able to keep the price down for the bulk of the GTE active rail property for any potential operators. While the GTE had beautiful vistas, it had very little good long term on line traffic, and much of it was bound to return to Guilford as soon as their operations improved. So keeping the price down was a real key to disposing of the line. CN was also potentially able to transfer their shoreline Portland property to "others" for a much higher premium.