When  Amtrak’s Northeast Regional train 67  crossed the Niantic River  on its nighttime  run from Boston to New York at 11:39 p.m. on September 7, 2012, it was the last train ever to travel on “Old Nan,” the 105 year old railroad drawbridge  between East Lyme and Waterford,  a historic “choke point” on the nation’s busiest rail line.  At 5:2 4 a.m. on September 8,  Northeast Regional train 66 traveled northbound across a brand new bridge just 58 feet to the south.  At that moment,  Old Nan,  one of the oldest rolling bascule drawbridges in the nation, officially went out of service. 

From the moment  the first railroad bridge was  built across the Niantic River, about five miles west of New London, by the New York and  New London Railroad in 1852, accommodating both railroad and maritime traffic proved  a persistent problem. Over  the next half century a series of replacement bridges attempted  to address the issue. but accommodating heavy trains traveling at high speeds and  the constant flow of pleasure boats, military boats and commercial vessels passing  under the bridge remained unresolved. 

 By the early 2000s,  Amtrak, the current owner, had prepared plans for a new bridge but these were put on hold until 2010 when the line secured funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The  $154 million project, one of Amtrak’s most complex capital improvement efforts, involved construction of new track alignments along the east and west approaches to the new bridge,  a new signal and electrical system, and widening the channel below the bridge from 45 to 100 feet, to provide for two lanes of marine traffic. Additionally, the Niantic Bay boardwalk below the bridge was relocated and a new walkway built, and the beach was replenished with 76,000 cubic yards of sand. The replacement bridge, completed and operational by September 2012,  is a two track electrified movable fixed trunnion bascule bridge that raises and lowers significantly faster than its predecessor.

As a result of the improvements, the new Niantic river bridge allows for Amtrak trains to travel across at 60 miles per hour rather than 45,  and, in addition to providing for two-lane boat traffic in a much wider channel,  increases the vertical clearance under the closed bridge from 11.5 feet to 16.

  Though Old Nan was replaced by a structure  providing much-improved speed and access,  her service to Connecticut will not be forgotten. Remnants of the 1907 bridge,  including the control house, lengths of chain, a sprocket, and the original builder plate were donated to the Connecticut Eastern Railroad Museum in Willimantic, where “Old Nan” will continue to remind visitors of her work as a bridge over traveled waters.