Having completed his job of raised and lowered BNSF Drawbridge 14 for a boat wishing to pass into Chambers Bay; the bridge tender walks back to the trackside tender house to await the next call. Completed in 1914 by the Northern Pacific Railroad, this Strauss patent direct-lift vertical lift bridge is significant as the only remaining example of its kind in the United States.
The direct-lift bridge uses counterweights directly attached to the truss bridge via a parallelogram-shaped arm. When the bridge rises, the arms rotate to lift the bridge up. A traditional vertical lift bridge uses tall towers that hold and operate a lift span via a system of cables that the Strauss patent design avoids.
