Merchants Bridge

The Merchants Bridge, officially the Merchants Memorial Mississippi Rail Bridge, is a rail bridge crossing the Mississippi River between St. Louis, Missouri, and Venice, Illinois. The bridge is owned by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. It opened in May 1889 and crosses the river north of the Eads Bridge.

History

The bridge was originally built by the St. Louis Merchants Exchange after it lost control of the Eads Bridge it had built to the Terminal Railroad. The Exchange feared a Terminal Railroad monopoly on the bridges but it would eventually lose control of the Merchants Bridge also.
In 2018 work began on an extensive renovation of the bridge projected to cost $172 million, which was completed in September 2022. The project involved completely replacing the three main bridge spans, and encasing the masonry piers to seismically retrofit them.
Prior to the reconstruction, the bridge's capacity was roughly 32 trains per day, with only one train traveling at 5 miles per hour able to cross the bridge at a time. Following the renovation, the capacity was 70 trains per day, with two trains able to pass each other simultaneously at up to. In addition, the allowable train width increased from about to, and the railcar weight capacity increased from to. The final cost of the project was $222 million.