The weekend of November 6 & 7, 1999, brought the annual Metroplex Train Show to Fort Worth, Texas. The show is held each year at the Amon Carter Exhibit Hall, a part of the Will Rogers Complex. The ISD & FA Shortline Railroad, a division of Calico Meadows, presents photo's taken during the show. Although most of the pictures will be member's locomotives and rolling stock, the clubs new LIONEL HELLGATE BRIDGE, crossing Calico Canyon, became the center piece of the club's layout.

HISTORY BEHIND THE HELLGATE BRIDGE

Early Dutch sailors named the stretch of rip current between what is now Wards Island and Queens, Long Island the "Gates of Hell" for the numerous wrecks and high losses it tolled. Hundreds of years later, passage across these waters posed perhaps the last large obstacle for the Pennsylvania Railroad in its quest to surpass the New York Central as the nation's largest railway.

To achieve its goal, the Pennsylvania Railroad joined forces with the New York-New Haven & Hartford Railroad to form the New York Connecting Railroad. The centerpiece of the new link to New England from the south and west was to be the now famous Hell Gate Bridge.

It took more than two decades of planning, $17 million, and a dozen years of construction, but Chief Engineer Gustav Lindenthal's 1,017' long and 305' high main arch finally opened in 1917. A tribute to Lindenthal's abilities, Hell Gate Bridge remained fully operational until 1994 without any significant maintenance.