| Constructed from 1912 to 1916, New Yorks Hell Gate Bridge is, one hundred years later, still arguably the most beautiful railroad bridge in America. The entire bridge is 17,000-feet in length, but the most famous portion is the 1,017-foot steel through arch bridge that spans the Hell Gate, a strait of the East River, between Astoria in Queens and Manhattans Randalls and Wards Islands. ("Hell Gate" is a corruption of the Dutch phrase "Hellegat," which could mean either "bright strait" or "clear opening.") The bridge is so well constructed that "Discover" magazine (February 2005) has estimated that the Hell Gate Bridge would be the last New York City bridge to collapse if humans disappeared, taking at least a millennium to do so. The double-track electrified Amtrak line on this bridge connects the former Pennsylvania Railroad with the former New Haven Railroad in order to complete the line from New York City to Boston, Massachusetts. On January 27th, 2016, one of Amtraks many "Northeast Regional" trains, running from Boston, Massachusetts, to Richmond, Virginia. Train #93 is led by a pair of Siemens ACS-64 electric locomotives, numbered 637 and 621. |