Bridge to finally reopen in October

Hamburg - The gap over the Wallkill has been bridged, but the Gingerbread Castle Road Bridge will remain impassible until the end of October. Last Thursday, a giant crane lifted into place the three panels that compose the deck of new bridge H9-01. But much work still remains to be done, county engineer Walter Cramp said. Today, the decorative stone faces on the abutments are almost finished. Nearby, the arched window balustrades lie in a bed of orange jewelweed ready to be installed. “The window balustrades are a bridge-design concept from the 1930s. We thought the design fit the site,” Cramp said. The bridge is next to the 1908 Wheatsworth Mill, once owned and operated by the National Biscuit Company, and the Gingerbread Castle, a fairy-tale attraction that opened in 1930, the image of which is displayed on Hamburg street signs and police insignia. Cramp explained that before the new bridge can carry traffic, the approaches must be graded and paved, the guardrails installed, and the balustrades locked into the deck with concrete to reinforce and strengthen them. The abutments will be capped with three-inch-thick blue stone, and the new concrete will be stained to match the cream and gray of the weathered Wheatsworth Mill A one-lane bridge that traverses the millrace also has received a new deck, and the roadway now can to bear the weight of all traffic, including garbage trucks and snowplows. The new bridge replaces the one-lane, steel-girder bridge that for 41 years had carried Gingerbread Castle Road over the Walkill in Hamburg. The bridge was closed on May 20, 2005, when county engineers judged the bridge unsafe after finding some places on the deck and sides rusted into steel lace. The new bridge is a two-lane, prefabricated galvanized steel structure with a precast concrete deck. The bridge, which was made by the Fort Miller Company of Fort Miller, N.Y., rises higher and stands wider above the Wallkill than did its predecessor, to comply with N.J. Department of Environmental Protection regulations. Although built to the regulation 40-ton weight limit, the small bridge further along the road in Hamburg is approved to carry only 12 tons, so heavier vehicles such as garbage trucks and snowplows still won’t be able take Wheatsworth and Gingerbread Castle Road to reach Route 23. The total cost of the bridge and all the work associated with its installation will come to about $900,000, which the county will pay through a grant from the N.J. Department of Transportation. During the nearly year and a half period the bridge has been out, Hardyston and Hamburg residents have had to take the long way around to travel between Routes 23 and 94. Hardyston Police and public works crew have been hit hardest of all, because the unbridged gap has caused them to have to go the long way around to reach parts of Hardyston that lie along Route 23. The bridge lies at the entrance of the old Wheatsworth Mill at the end of Wheatsworth Road, which connects Route 94 with Route 23 at Hamburg. Its closure cut off the connection between the two roads. The road, which begins as Gingerbread Castle Road in Hamburg and becomes Wheatsworth Road in Hardyston, is the site of Hardyston’s new town hall and police complex, which opened in December. Hardyston middle school and recreation complex sit next door to the complex.