Talk:Hackensack Drawbridge

strange edit
Why do that?  D r e a m Focus  01:53, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * In the middle of a rewrite. The information blanked out lacks direct referencing. Don't want to lose it at this moment, so it's commented out for now. Lol, did not think so many people would be looking and working at this; thought I had at least an hour or so to work on it... - Theornamentalist (talk) 01:56, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I'll check back later then. Just seems like a strange way to do things.  If you think its needs referencing, just add a citation needed tag to it.   D r e a m Focus  01:57, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * With it up for AfD, I really only want to source directly. Unfortunately, it seems a bulk of the info is from that Trains publication which I can't find online; though AGF suggests we add the citation tag, I've found it to be a poor means for avoiding deletion. I will add back what I can't reference personally. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:13, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * It's disorganized, but I'm done for tonight. I will take another look in the next day or so for cleanup and additional fixes. - Theornamentalist (talk) 03:48, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Edit thoughts

 * 1) add wikilink to Newark and New York Railroad, which references 1946 accident and potential additional sources.--Milowent • hasspoken 01:58, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Will do. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:13, 10 October 2012 (UTC)


 * to add?

In 1897, a train carrying nearly 200 people de-railed while crossing the bridge without injury.

Hackensack River drawbridge?
Does it go by more than one name? More than one drawbridge on that river perhaps? a Hackensack River bridge that is in the midst of a $1 million rehab. including the 73-year-old Hackensack River drawbridge on Route 46 that carries about 40,000 vehicles a day. The Wikipedia article says its older than that. This news story is from 2007. Anyone check Google Earth yet? Questia and Credo were as always no use to me, but my Highbeam offered some results.  D r e a m Focus  02:29, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Interesting note; I've driven over the one you mention many times...
 * As far as distinguishing between the two within sources, I suppose if the mentions of the bridge are pre-1934, it is most likely about the one this article is concerned with. One thing I can say is this article's bridge were specifically for rail-lines, whereas the one from that article I believe were for both, now I believe only operational for cars. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:49, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * Oh, and if you check out gmaps from the coordinates on the page, you can see the remains of the rail-line. Might have to go snap a picture one of these days... - Theornamentalist (talk) 03:21, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

HD Draw
I would suggest maintaining the original name HD Draw, which while seemingly redundant/repetitive, is consistent with rail bridges crossing the Hack and Passaic Rivers, and does disambiguate it from the many others, uses traditional RR terminology used when naming/refering to them, and will avoid confusion as aboveDjflem (talk) 11:11, 10 October 2012 (UTC)
 * My reasoning for the move was that I had not seen it called "HD Draw" anywhere except on the NRHS page. However, I have no problem with the move back, especially if it is in an effort for consistency in naming. - Theornamentalist (talk) 12:11, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

illustration of Jagger


 * I agree with changing back to the original name HD Draw with a redirect from Hackensack Drawbridge. I would like those working on this article to look at List of crossings of the Hackensack River and see if this defunct bridge can be added to the list. Note the two bridges labeled "(defunct)" already on the list. More attention to this list is warranted. I believe I can locate some of the existing bridges on Google Maps and add their lat/long to the list and their respective articles. There are also opportunities to add photos.


 * I stumbled on this article while adding templates to New Jersey articles, and added it to Article Rescue Squadron/Rescue list, and now the article is greatly improved and seems safe from deletion. My thanks to all the editors who added so much material to this article. --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:35, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * Regarding naming, I have two concerns. 1. "Hackensack drawbridge" could refer to the Rt. 46 bridge, a former Erie railroad bridge, or this bridge.  2. I haven't found "HD Draw" to be the common name in references.  I propose that "Hackensack drawbridge" be a disambiguation page, and that this article be renamed to something like "Hackensack Drawbridge (1869)" or "Hackensack Drawbridge (HD Draw)".  Thoughts? --ChrisRuvolo (t) 12:54, 11 October 2012 (UTC)


 * "HD" was the name of the tower, correct? While "Hackensack Draw" was used for the bridge, was "HD Draw" in generally usage?  Kablammo (talk) 12:28, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

The article says that the 1922 enlargement of interlocking resulted in there being three levermen on duty. I suspect that was one per tour if they had eight hour tours in 1922. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:1002:B000:43CB:223:12FF:FE29:BF6A (talk) 01:19, 3 November 2013 (UTC)

Visual ref w/ no text shame
This website shows the original shore structure (see Unkown nr Triples) and the extant piers (see Unkown Newark Bay). Like its sister bridge the HD was probably re-aligned when raised circa 1912/13, but to date haven't found a text ref to support the claim.Djflem (talk) 21:38, 10 October 2012 (UTC)

Size of Jagger Seam
Jagger Seam, the vessel which struck the bridge, was an EC2-S-AW1 variant of the Liberty Ship design. These colliers had a gross register tonnage (grt) of 6,643. See Davies, James, Liberty Cargo Ship, pp. 15, 23. This is a measure of volume, not of weight, and grt cannot be converted to weight. The displacement of these ships could range up to 14,730 standard tons of 2240 pounds when fully loaded. One cannot determine the mass or weight of the ship from gross register tonnage. Unless there is a source for tha actual displacement at the time, no weight estimate should be given. Kablammo (talk) 12:09, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I did not know that; thank you for fixing it. It seemed ridiculously high when I added the reference, but I didn't really think about it. Is it of any interest to list the grt of the ship, or is that mostly besides the point? - Theornamentalist (talk) 18:59, 17 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The ship, when loaded, could displace 14,750 tons, but Jagger Seam was running light with only water ballast. One could approximate the displacement from the vessel's known dimensions and block coefficient (page 23 of the Davies paper) and the draft at the time of the incident (from the 1951 admiralty case).  Another way to estimate displacement would be to subtract the deadweight tonnage from maximum displacement to give the weight of the ship itself, to which one would have to add assumed weights for fuel, stores, crew, water ballast, etc.  As you can see, there would be "original research".
 * Perhaps the way to handle ship characteristics such as grt would be a separate article on the vessel, rather than the piped link we have now. I won't have time to do that in the immediate future, but perhaps one of ship editors will see this interesting article on the main page and create a stand-alone article on Jagger Seam.  Kablammo (talk) 23:23, 17 October 2012 (UTC)

How does the bridge move?
The body of the article completely and utterly fails to specify exactly what sort or moveable bridge it is ... in other words, what is the opening mechanism? Does it rotate, or do the road decks get raised drawbridge style, or bascule style? That sort of description appears entirely missing from the article body. (The infobox tells us it's a swing bridge. Nowhere do we get a clue as to whether it pivots around its centre point or at one or other end). So far as the body of the article is concerned, there seems to be an assumption that we know what a drawbridge is and how it operates. BTW, if the first sentence in a description of a bridge is the alleged weight of steel ... you can be fairly sure you're not reading a good description of a bridge. I'd have expected the article to explain that the bridge is composed of six girder bridge sections, three each arranged around a two-span truss bridge which swings about it's centre point. If we said something like that, we might actually have a description of the bridge rather than merely its role, it's height above the river, and its history of accidents. --Tagishsimon (talk) 00:47, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * If I could find that information, I would add it to the article. Sorry. - Theornamentalist (talk) 02:06, 18 October 2012 (UTC)
 * The linked article on swing bridge says they have center pivots. Weight of steel is a common method of estimating bridge costs and it not surprising that a book which mentions the bridge would contain that datum, as does your cited source.  The technical description of the truss arrangement of this bridge is best supported by reliable sources.  As to these and other claimed deficiencies, perhaps Tagishsimon will help correct them, by editing the article. For a DYK, this article is very good, and an interesting read.  Kablammo (talk) 03:14, 18 October 2012 (UTC)

List of crossings of the Hackensack River
Can we consider having a List of crossings of the Hackensack River, something like the List of crossings of the Schuylkill River? It would seem from the map that this defunct bridge was the last bridge downstream before Newark Bay. An AMTRAK bridge over the Hackensack River is being replaced. The usual arrangement of these lists is by county, starting at the mouth of the river and going upstream, and of course sometimes there is overlap when the river is the county boundary. --DThomsen8 (talk) 12:33, 22 October 2012 (UTC)


 * List of crossings of the Hackensack River exists. Could use some work, ie coords added, plus article on bridges going upriver. List of crossings of the Lower Passaic River format recently created allows for more historical info. Djflem (talk) 20:37, 22 October 2012 (UTC)
 * I am working on the coords. --DThomsen8 (talk) 15:08, 23 October 2012 (UTC)

Removed material
I have removed the material derived from the "Pennsylvania Tunnel and Terminal Railroad" source, which refers to Portal Bridge, not to HD. Choess (talk) 00:45, 13 May 2013 (UTC)