Skip to main content

A Tale of Two Cities and Two Bridges - Durham's Can Opener and Raleigh's Peace Street Bridge

Raleigh and Durham, North Carolina.  Two cities - roughly twenty miles apart.  Both are growing, have their own identity, and a little bit of a rivalry.  The major international airport is Raleigh-Durham, but don't tell anyone from Raleigh or Durham that they are the same city.

There are a variety of different yet similar things in both cities.  One example is two separate bridges - both carry trains, eat trucks annually, and are beloved in their unique way.

Raleigh's Peace Street Bridge and Durham's Can Opener Bridge (located at South Gregson at West Peabody) are both low-clearance Norfolk Southern railroad overpasses that for decades have taken out numerous unsuspecting tractor-trailers.  Each bridge resides near their respective city's downtowns - Durham's Brightleaf District and Raleigh's Glenwood South.  Over the years, the two bridges have generated media attention and a social media following.

Durham's Can Opener Bridge:


The bridge opened in 1940 carrying the Southern Railway over Gregson Street.  Today, the tracks remain in operation with Durham's Amtrak Station a few hundred yards to the southeast.  Initially built with a clearance of 11 feet and 8 inches, the Gregson Bridge had a well-known and earned reputation as a truck eater by the late 1960s.

The bridge became a local and later worldwide celebrity in 2008.  A local professional, Jürgen Henn, placed a video camera in his Brightleaf Square office to record traffic.  A few weeks later, he captured his first crash.  A year later, he added a second camera.  A YouTube channel was created - the videos were so successful that Henn created a website documenting the bridge's mishaps.  In addition, you can buy bridge merchandise.

Durham's formerly 11'8" Gregson Street Bridge now has a 12'4" clearance.

It wasn't until 2019 that the Gregson Street Bridge saw clearance improvements.  A $500,000 safety improvement allowed transportation officials to raise the Gregson Street Bridge another eight inches to a 12-foot-4-inch clearance.

Raleigh's Peace Street Bridge:

The Gregson Street Bridge clearance now matches the clearance of the other Triangle truck-scalping bridge, Raleigh's Peace Street Bridge.   The 12'4" low-clearance bridge is the second rail bridge to sit just east of the Glenwood Ave. and Peace St. intersection.  

Raleigh's Peace Street Bridge - the current version has been in place since 1963. (Adam Prince - September 2023)

The first Peace Street Bridge was a basic plate girder design erected in 1948 that carried over the Southern, now Norfolk Southern, Railway at a 12-foot clearance.  That bridge was replaced in 1963 by the current bridge.  When completed clearance was only improved by 4".

Annually since then, the bridge has claimed its share of 18-wheelers, moving trucks, and more.  The bridge is a staple of Raleigh social media - and has its 'own' Twitter account.

Tale of the Tape:

Both bridges are local community iconic landmarks. So how do they measure up against each other?

* - Number calculated from 11foot8 data of 178 trucks over 15 years
** - Raleigh Peace Street Bridge merchandise is done by a local clothing company.

Durham's bridge is older, and from its years at a lower clearance has eaten more trucks annually.  However, Peace Street's numbers are from trucks that were physically stuck under the bridge.  The Durham bridge stats count partial shaves and trucks that have been able to get through the underpass.  

The Peace Street Bridge does NOT, to my knowledge, have an active webcam that monitors the bridge and then has any incidents shared online.

In the end, the victory goes to Durham.  The bridge's video documentation and internet presence are far greater than its feisty neighbor down the line in Raleigh.

Further Reading:

Sources & Links:

Where To Find Them:

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The 1915-era Teilman Bridge (the only known Concrete Pony Truss Bridge in California)

The Teilman Bridge is a semi-abandoned structure over Fresno Slough west of Burrell siding near the intersection of Elkhorn Avenue and Elkhorn Grade.  This structure is the only known Concrete Pony Truss Bridge constructed in California and was designed by Ingvart Teilman.  Teilman's Bridge would open in late 1915 when the Elkhorn Grade was the primary road between Fresno and Coalinga.  The structure would be replaced in 1991 but was left standing as it carries pipelines over Fresno Slough.  Part 1; the history of the Teilman Bridge In the early Twentieth Century the most direct highway between Fresno and Coalinga followed the Elkhorn Grade.  The Elkhorn Grade began at Fresno Slough a short distance west of Burrell siding.  From Fresno Slough the Elkhorn Grade followed a generally southwestern course through San Joaquin Valley into the Kettleman Hills towards Coalinga.   The Elkhorn Grade can be seen on the  1914 C.F. Weber map of Fresno Coun...

The Dummy Lights of New York

  A relic of the early days of motoring, dummy lights were traffic lights  that  were  placed  in the middle of a street intersection. In those early days, traffic shuffled through busy intersections with the help of a police officer who stood on top of a pedestal. As technology improved and electric traffic signals became commonplace, they were also  originally  positioned on a platform at the center of the intersection. Those traffic signals became known as  " dummy lights "  and were common until  traffic lights were moved  onto wires and poles that crossed above the intersection.  In New York State, only a handful of these dummy lights exist. The dummy lights  are found  in the Hudson Valley towns of Beacon and Croton-on-Hudson, plus there is an ongoing tug of war in Canajoharie in the Mohawk Valley, where their dummy light has been knocked down and replaced a few times. The dummy light in Canajoharie is currently...

Prunedale Road (Monterey County)

Prunedale Road is a short 2.6-mile-long frontage corridor of US Route 101 in the namesake Monterey County community of Prunedale.  Prior to 1932 US Route 101 bypassed Prunedale in favor of the San Juan Grade to the east.  Prunedale Road along with nearby Moro Road served as an alternative connecting highway between Salinas and San Juan Bautista.  Following the realignment of US Route 101 onto the Prunedale Cutoff the former through route along Prunedale Road would be rendered as a western frontage.   Part 1; the history of Prunedale Road Prunedale Road is located in and is named after the Monterey County community of Prunedale.  Said community was founded near the junction of San Migeul Canyon, Langley Canyon and Echo Valley.  Watsonville settler Charles Langley (namesake of Langley Canyon) was one of the prominent early community settlers.  The Prunedale Post Office would open for the first time in 1894 but would close by 1908.  Early agricu...