The Glimmer Glass Bridge is a bridge in Monmouth County, New Jersey, United States. It carries traffic from Brielle Road over the Glimmer Glass, a navigable tidal inlet of the Manasquan River, between Manasquan and Brielle. It is owned by the County of Monmouth.HistoryThe Glimmer Glass Bridge was built in 1898. It is a cable lift bascule bridge, using a rolling counterweight design and is technologically and historically significant as the only example of its type in New Jersey. It may also be the only example in the eastern half of the United States.Scientific American in an 1896 issue described a recently completed nearby bridge on the Erie Railroad on its main line over Berrys Creek near Rutherford, New Jersey: "...although the principle behind the design is not entirely new, the Berry's Creek Bridge is the first application of this system of counter weighing for a structure of this magnitude."The principle is to use a curved track and rolling counterweights where the work expended in raising the leaf is equal to the energy released by the falling counterweight. The toe end of the movable span is linked by cables to cylindrical rolling counterweights. The connecting cable passes over a tower column with a curved track. Moving the counterweights along the curved track thus raises or lowers the bridge. The work expended in raising the leaf is equal to the energy released by the falling counterweight. The toe end of the moveable span is linked by cables to cylindrical rolling counterweights. The rolling counterweight single-leaf bascule bridge with a deck girder movable leaf is the only example of the late 19th-century bridge type in the state of New Jersey and possibly the entire country. It was, at the time, a popular design for railroads in New Jersey for spanning canals.
