Tuesday May 10th 2016

It didn’t rain at all today. The temperature inland got up into the mid 70s, but it was 15 to 20 degrees cooler at the canal. A strong breeze was blowing in from the ocean.

On my late afternoon/evening walk on the canal service road I got to see one of the elusive lowering of the railroad bridge to allow a train to cross. Over the years I’ve been coming down here I’ve only seen the bridge down a few times. This time of year it is not lowered every day. Later in the year there is often commuter service from Boston which requires more frequent lowering. I haven’t heard if there is a budget for the commuter service be run this year.

Train passing between the canal and bordering homes.

There are two rail lines feeding the railroad bridge from the Cape side. One comes along the canal and the other flows straight into the bridge from the Falmouth MA area. The train for this crossing was a freight train coming along the canal to the bridge. Along one section of the line the train passes between houses and the canal. From across the canal it looks like the train is going through the back yards of the homes. There is actually about close to 100 feet between the tracks and the houses. It’s still very close and there are not significant fences.

Railroad bridge halfway down. Note the counter weights in the tower going up.

Railroad bridge fully down with train starting across the bridge.

The bridge span uses massive counter weights to move up and down in a relatively short time span. A canal patrol boat is stationed in the canal to ward off any boaters getting to close. The bigger traffic is warned well ahead of time to slow down or speed up to avoid the lowered bridge. I’m not sure if the canal or the railroad has priority if there were an issue. I do know that the bridge lowering is scheduled. This one happened at 6PM on the dot.