Techny Rail Bridge Moves Into Its Second Century

Much has been said and written about the state of America’s infrastructure during the past few years, including various plans to jumpstart the economy by rebuilding it. 

But nearly three years after the start of the Great Recession, the 100-year-old railroad bridge over Techny Road, with its arch design, remains cracked and pitted. From the road, its underlying structure—steel rebar—can be seen exposed and rusting in places where wide swaths of the bridge’s surface concrete have crumbled to the ground. 

So what’s the story? Responsibility for inspection and maintenance of railway bridges lies with the railways themselves, not with the village of Northbrook. And in the case of the Techny Road bridge, that would be its owner, the Union Pacific Railroad.

Despite its surface appearance, Union Pacific assures the public that the bridge is safe. 

“Our maintenance crews have worked on the loose concrete in the past, and continue to monitor the structure,” said Union Pacific spokesperson Mark Davis.  “Like all of our bridges it is inspected a minimum of twice a year and is repaired as needed.”

The 64-foot long bridge, which pre-dates the Titanic, is nearly as old as the village of Northbrook itself.

“The bridge was built is 1911, when the Chicago & Northwestern line was built,” said Judy Hughes, of the . 

According to Hughes, the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad used bridge numbers, not locations, to keep track of their many bridges. The railroad numbered the Techny Road bridge number 866, while the bridge over the Canadian Pacific Rail Line [formerly Milwaukee Road] is number 864.

“That is the steel bridge you can see from many places in central Northbrook,” Hughes said. 

Today, those two bridges are located in succession to each other, which means the bridge numbered 865 by the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad is now nowhere to be found. What happened to it?

The missing number bridge was probably a cattle pass like the one that remains on the Milwaukee Road beside Lorenz Drive,” Hughes explained. 

Other than aging, number 866 – the Techny bridge – appears much as it did in the days when it stood in the shadow of Navy jets that flew in and out of the Glenview Naval Air Station, when the land under the store nearby was little more than scrub brush and dirt trails. The bridge pre-dates the former air station by a dozen years—and is still carrying thousands of tons of freight every day.