• Sunday-What'sUP September 26 - 03:22 am

Wednesday of this week will mark 23 years since trains crossed the Portage Lift Bridge on a regular basis. We would be interested to know if any of our Pasty Cam regulars have any memories of watching (or riding) the train, or of operating the bridge during those years of service.

I'd also be interested if anyone knows about rail crossings under the bridge since 1982. I seem to recall something recently travelling the tracks in conjunction with a train restoration of some type.

Things have cooled off in the Copper Country, and Fall colors are beginning to emerge across the U.P. It's one of my favorite times of the year, in spite of frequent drizzle, like we have this morning.

Have a good week :0)

good morning all. a rainy day here in mid michigan
a good day to lounge around with a good book and a good cup of coffee. you all have a good day.

It is beautiful to see a train on that bridge. I unfortunately was not lucky enough to witness such beauty. Thanks for the photo.

Cheers with the good coffee too. From the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island, Ontario it is cloudy and I am awaiting rain too.

Hope everyone has a wonderful day.
-wood

Only remember the Soo from my house in Asland.

Great picture, and thanks to Davie the bridge operator for the heads up. Marv in sunny Florida.

when i was growing up in tamarack location, a suburb of calumet, i remember the soo line loading logs, lumber, and saw dust. many of hours playing on the saw dust pile, and or logs. not realizing how dangerous it realy was. then wondering why our parents were mad.

I'd like to add a special thanks to Bridge Operator Dave Poisson also, he supplied the above picture and the info sheet too. Thanks, Dave!

I distinctly remember the one time I rode the train from the Calumet station to Illinois with my grandmother. It was 1959. I believe it may have actually been the old Houghton Bridge that we passed over at that time. As they say, time flies.

I think the last train across was the train that laid the fiber optic cable and that was somewhere around May of 1987. It was probably the same cable cut by the beavers around Boston Location earlier this summer.

Wasn't there a train from near the Quincy Mine
that crossed the bridge last year on its way
downstate to be restored? I seem to
remember a story like that.

I love this picture. It reminds me of White
Water's song "Out Along the Soo Line."

I consider it a very lucky day here in Toronto if I
see a Soo Line car on one of the sidings.

Who's the guy standing on the train? My grandfather was an engineer for the soo line in those days.

Here are the pictures of the last crossing

I remember when trains still ran under the bridge. I used to go fishing around the bridge and would have to move when the train was coming across. For some reason, the fish always bit better when the train was near; maybe it woke them up or something....

I'm glad you folks are enjoying the pix of the LAST train to cross the Portage Lake Bridge in September 1982.....I'm the guy who clicked it! In spite of the recent crossing of that old steam locomotive from Ripley (by truck on the lower level), the 1982 crossing remains the last train, as the recent event was merely an engine on a truck and not a train, besides not even being on rails. For the record, too, the May 1987 fiberoptic cable train did not go north of Houghton....only as far as the freight yards in eastdowntown Htn.

I have the newspaper clipping of the last train, makes me sad to think of what was and gone. But I guess its progress.
My grandmother cut them out of the paper and mailed them to me, so many years ago.

Gordy.

I have clippings like that too. Progress has its
price...and I guess that price is the pain we
feel for an era that is passing . Today's picture
is particularly fitting when we think of the way
we feel when we hear a train whistle... "Out
along the Soo Line."

Good for the beavers.........makes for a great story. I will know when I am retired and "have made it" when I can throw my cell phone into the deepest hole I can find. Someday it will be a status symbol not to have to own a cell phone...

hey, cell phones don't work in the Keweenaw now anyway!

They do from McClains state park.
site 97 , 3rd stump on right.
very funny to see people waiting to stand near/on that stump to get a call out.

I have a question. Is Dave Poisson the Lake Linden Coffee Maker from the old CB radio days?

With railroads not as major a form of transportation, today, it's
nice 2 c pics of trains or hearing the sound of a train whistle in
the distance, especially at night.