The Mission Railway Bridge is a Canadian

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

 railway bridge spanning the Fraser River

Fraser River

The Fraser River is the longest river within British Columbia, Canada, rising at Fraser Pass near Mount Robson in the Rocky Mountains and flowing for , into the Strait of Georgia at the city of Vancouver. It is the tenth longest river in Canada...

 at Mission

Mission, British Columbia

Mission, the core of which was formerly known as Mission City, is a district municipality in the province of British Columbia, Canada. It is situated on the north bank of the Fraser River overlooking the City of Abbotsford and with that city is part of the Central Fraser Valley. Mission is the...

, British Columbia

British Columbia

British Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...

.

Replacing an earlier bridge built in 1891, which was the first and only bridge crossing of the Fraser below Siska

Siska, British Columbia

Siska, also known historically as Cisco, is a locality in the Fraser Canyon of British Columbia, Canada 9.4 kilometres south of the town of Lytton. It is at Siska that the Canadian Pacific and Canadian National Railways switch from one side of the river to the other, due to the impossibility of...

 in the Fraser Canyon

Fraser Canyon

The Fraser Canyon is an 84 km landform of the Fraser River where it descends rapidly through narrow rock gorges in the Coast Mountains en route from the Interior Plateau of British Columbia to the Fraser Valley...

 until the construction of the New Westminster rail bridge in 1904, it was constructed in 1909 by the Canadian Pacific Railway

Canadian Pacific Railway

The Canadian Pacific Railway , formerly also known as CP Rail between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railway founded in 1881 and now operated by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited, which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001...

 (CPR). The Mission Railway Bridge is supported by 13 concrete piers and is approximately 533 metres in length. Before completion of the Mission highway bridge

Mission Bridge

The Mission Bridge is a steel girder bridge linking the District Of Mission to the City of Abbotsford, British Columbia. The bridge is measured at long and is the only direct road link between the two.-History:...

, highway traffic to and from Matsqui and Abbotsford with Mission used the bridge as a one-way alternating route, with traffic lights at either end to control direction. Rail traffic often held up car crossings, causing long and often very lengthy waits, which were a part of daily life in the Central Valley until the new bridge was completed.

Beneath the bridge's north abutment is an important river-level gauge monitored during the annual Fraser freshet

Freshet

A freshet can refer to one of two things:* A flood resulting from heavy rain or a spring thaw. Whereas heavy rain often causes a flash flood, a spring thaw event is generally a more incremental process, depending upon local climate and topography...

. The bridge is also the location of the end of the Fraser's tidal bore - downstream from the bridge the river is increasingly influenced by tidal influences from the Georgia Strait.

Swing span

The Mission Railway Bridge has a swing span which has a vertical clearance of 4.9 metres above the water when closed. The swing span is fitted atop a circular concrete pier, the 10th from the north bank of the river. The 10th pier is protected from shipping traffic by two 46 metre wood piers extending upstream and downstream respectively perpendicular to the bridge which are tapered at both ends. The navigation channel past the bridge is 30 metres in width. At night a fixed white light is displayed on piers 9 and 11 as well as at the up-river and down-river ends of the protection pier.

The majority of marine traffic consists of log tows and gravel barges, which are permitted to use the navigation channel beneath the fixed span between piers 5 and 6. The swing span is used for wood chip barges and other vessels which cannot navigate beneath the span between piers 5 and 6.

CPR maintains a bridge tender 24 hours per day at an office on the north bank of the bridge. Vessels requesting passage through the swing span contact the bridge tender on marine VHF radio, whereby the tender walks the bridge to a control booth situated on the swing span.