The movable bridge — which a succession of speakers noted dates to the administration of President Theodore Roosevelt — is a notorious bottleneck along the nation’s Northeast Corridor, forcing trains to slow down to 30 mph as they cross over the Housatonic River, slow enough that they’re easily passed by cars traveling along the parallel stretch of I-95. To fix the problem, officials have come up with a plan to spend nearly $150 million making interim repairs to the bridge over the five years, before embarking on a decade-long, $2.2 billion replacement of the rusting structure.
Similar problems with costly solutions are impacting rail travel throughout Connecticut, officials say, including a pair of aging bridges in Norwalk and Old Saybrook that are in line for their own billion-dollar replacement projects. Throw in a few hundred million for track repairs, power upgrades, capacity studies and realignments, and one begins to get a sense of the scope of the work ahead. Altogether, the list of rail infrastructure projects under development in Connecticut is expected to cost $6.5 billion — a “dizzying” and “astronomical” sum even in the words of project supporters.
https://www.stamfordadvocate.com/connecticut/article/ct-amtrak-devon-rail-bridge-infrastructure-bill-18504285.php