Achieving the Impossible in 1873: Lifting the 160-Ton Draw of the…

In 1873, railroad crews were working furiously to construct the New Haven Branch Line through Pelham. Although the Branch Line did not open to passenger traffic until November, 1873, for many months before then crews worked to lay the tracks and to construct the railroad drawbridge next to the new Pelham Bridge that first opened on June 1, 1871 and permitted its first public travel across the bridge on June 3, 1871.