Walkway Over the Hudson State Historic Park

Before this bridge became a state park this massive 1.28 mile steel structure was know as the Poughkeepsie-Highland Railroad Bridge, an Industrial Age superstar that once bore the weight of 3,500 freight cars a day.
When trains began rumbling over the bridge in 1888, it was the longest bridge in the world-a title it held for over a year.  It became a key transportation hub linking western raw materials to eastern industrial centers, until a fire in 1974 crippled the railroad bridge and it fell into disrepair and an uncertain future.
It took another 35 years before a grassroots nonprofit called Walkway Over the Hudson was able to successfully galvanize public and private support in the Hudson Valley and statewide to save the historic bridge and transform it into the park it is today.
The bridge re-opened on October 3, 2009 after a two-year construction effort.  Today the Walkway is the longest elevated pedestrian park in the world, returning it to the record books after 121 years.

DH and I getting ready to enter the walkway

Fall leaves

View from the bridge

This is the closest we have come to sunshine in weeks!

One beautiful red tree

Can you see the Fallkill  in the backgound?  It was once used to power this old industrial building in Poughkeepsie.

Looking north

Looking south at the Poughkeepsie bridge for traffic.

Fall in Poughkeepsie