The New London Day 11/1/2025
By Carrie Czerwinski,
Special to The Day
Stonington — Wequetequock resident Steve Gumpel felt he needed to speak out.
Whenever he guides his boat beneath the bridge separating Wequetequock Cove from Little Narragansett Bay as a train passes overhead, he says, chunks of extensive rust that he can see on the span fall into his boat.
“It gives me the willies thinking of the crew and the passengers on those trains as they go by,” Gumpel said Monday.
As a member of the Wequetequock Cove Clean Water Coalition, Gumpel used photographs and phrases like “extreme wastage,” to describe the bridge in an unofficial report, that the coalition is using to call for greater transparency and a new inspection.
Gumpel, with a degree in marine engineering, has a professional background that includes 35 years of experience in international and domestic ship safety, steel boat construction and expertise in how steel behaves in a marine environment.
Gumpel stressed that he is not a structural engineer and has no knowledge of railroad bridge construction methods, but he said he does know steel, and what he sees isn’t good.
“Building a railroad bridge is a different beast than building a ship, on the one hand, but on the other hand, one knows, even if you don’t have experience in steel, one knows what’s good and what’s bad, and anybody can see that this is bad,” he said, pointing to vertical stiffeners, rotted away where they should be connected to the base of the bridge, among other signs of deterioration.
Amtrak did not respond to questions about Bridge 137.52 or the inspection process, but a spartan two-page Sept. 20, 2023, public inspection report of the 71-foot-long bridge contained in emails provided by First Selectman Danielle Chesebrough’s office declared the bridge safe.
Amtrak uses numbers to identify bridges, where the whole number is the mile marker and the decimal is how far from the mile marker it is.
Questions about Amtrak inspections
According to federal regulations, railroad bridges are required to be inspected every calendar year with no more than 540 days between inspections.
It is unclear whether the September 2023 inspection was the most recent; but if it is not, local officials have not been provided with a newer report.
According to the emails, Chesebrough last had contact with Amtrak about the bridge in 2024 when an Amtrak representative requested the location of the bridge and offered to see what Amtrak had planned for the location.
On Thursday, Chesebrough said she was unaware of any more recent inspections but said she would contact Amtrak to see if she could find out.
Also on Thursday, state Sen. Heather Somers, R-18th District, confirmed that as far as she was aware, the 2023 inspection report was the most recent. She has also said she has been working to obtain a copy of the full 2023 inspection report from Amtrak.
Paul Goetz, coalition chairman, said members would like to see the bridge inspected again, and he would like to see Amtrak be more transparent with local officials about the condition of the bridge by providing the entire inspection report.
The Wequetequock Cove Clean Water Coalition, comprised of residents, environmental groups and business owners, works to address the health of the cove, which consistently receives poor water quality scores and received an overall grade of D- in the 2024 Save the Sound Water Quality Report Card. Among its efforts, the coalition is advocating for replacement of the narrow bridge with a wider span bridge that would allow the cove to flush properly.
And while Gumpel, who has lived on the cove since he was a child and remembers a time when oyster beds thrived among eel grasses, agrees the span should be wider to help restore the badly degraded water quality. He said that he is concerned about the deterioration of the short, single-span steel bridge of unknown age.
Gumpel said he knows the bridge existed as far back as the 1970s, but he was not able to find any indication of when it was built.
Documentation indicates through-girder construction and riveting was widely used in the early 20th century, and reports and photos in the Mystic River Historical Society Collection show a railroad bridge in the same area was damaged in the 1938 hurricane, though it is unclear if it is the same bridge.
Chesebrough said from photos she had seen it was unclear whether the rust was cosmetic rust or active corrosion. Cosmetic rust is a type of surface corrosion that occurs rapidly in the presence of salty, humid air, but has solid metal beneath it. While it can become active corrosion rust over time, it isn’t necessarily indicative of structural deterioration.
“The bridge visually looks rusted. It doesn’t look like it’s in prime condition, but the report says it meets the standard. I have written to Amtrak personally and asked them for a full detailed report,” Somers said, adding that the full report would help determine next steps.
A series of photographs Gumpel provided to The Day appear to show structural deterioration of many parts of the bridge including the four feet, the vertical stiffeners which prevent buckling, and parts of the bottom support beams.
He pointed to areas where the feet have rusted to the extent that they are no longer completely connected to the bridge and do not sit flat on the base, and holes where rust has eaten through some of the steel.
“It looks like something from an abandoned railway up in flyover country somewhere, not an active East Coast, Boston to New York, train line,” he added.
“None of this discussion is a blame. It is about responsibility, however,” he said, adding that he would also like to see this bridge at the top of Amtrak’s list for replacement.
A 2024 email from U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney’s office obtained by The Day disclosed that both the town of Stonington and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had been in contact with Amtrak regarding the bridge, and though the bridge is not scheduled for replacement, the quasi-governmental agency would consider it.
“They would, however, be open to discussions for a possible replacement depending on proposed design alternatives and available grant funding. Before anything else, Amtrak would need to see any preliminary modeling information regarding what the new span length would need to be,” the email read.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not respond to a request for information regarding its communications with Amtrak. A notice on the website indicated that response times may be delayed by the government shutdown.
