C & O Bridge, Covington, Kenucky

a.k.a. The Clay Wade Bailey Bridge

A timeline, to keep various C&O Bridges straight.

1886-1889	The Original C&O Railroad Bridge Built
1929	A new railroad bridge is built next to the old one; this new bridge is the current bridge for the railroad.
1929	The original RR bridge is sold to Kentucky; converted for use by auto traffic.
1970	Original RR bridge (auto traffic since 1929) is blown up. New bridge is built; named for Clay Wade Bailey.


Building the caisson on the Kentucky Side	C & O Bridge Construction (late 1880's)


The original C&O Railroad Bridge, c. 1890's	An early drawing of the C & O Railroad Bridge


Looking toward Covington	note foreground	1929
"Chespeake" & Ohio Bridge	The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Bridge	The Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad Bridge

C & O Bridge, 1937


Construction and grand opening of 1929 Bridge
The first locomotives, and crews to go over the first 1889 C&O Bridge, and the rebuilt C&O RR Bridge on April 3, 1929. You can click on the captions under the pictures
The above four images are all from the 1929 L&N Employees Magazine. The accompanying story is here.

Under the C&O Bridge, looking toward Covington


C & O Railway Bridge	Cities Highway Bridge
both from the US Army, Chief of Engineers, 1934

C & O Bridge Traffic, circa 1945

C & O in the 1950's

The L & N had trackage rights over the C & O Bridge.
This image is from 1965.


Photos by Jack Klumpe, October 19, 1970	The End of the C&O Bridge

This is the U. P. Schenck, built in 1876, and later re-named the Longfellow. There aren't pictures of her as the Longfellow. In a thick fog on the morning of March 8, 1895, she hit the C&O Railroad Bridge, and sank in three minutes. The story is here. The New York Times version of the story is here, and has a partial list passengers who drowned.

The Cincinnati Transit site has a page on the history of the
C&O Bridge, here, and on the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge, here.