Editor’s note: This is the first in a series of stories looking into the inner workings of local organizations and explaining how government bodies and other institutions operate and benefit the citizens of Vicksburg and Warren County. 

The Vicksburg Post recently sat down with Herman Smith, Superintendent of the Vicksburg Bridge Commission of Warren County, to get to know the inner workings of the Old Mississippi River Bridge.

While the commission is part of the Warren County government, the Warren County Board of Supervisors and the commission are financially autonomous.

“There is a federal statute and a state statute that designates we cannot share our funds with the county and the county cannot share funds with us,” Smith said.

The entirety of the bridge is operated and maintained by the commission.

“Louisiana has never contributed to the funding of this bridge because they don’t own it. They don’t own any portion of it. Warren County actually owns 45 acres of ground on the Louisiana side,” Smith said. “But we’re not recognized as a government entity over there. So we have to pay taxes and our fees for energy, and stuff that we use over there are highly taxed. And we pay a lot of property tax over there. Right at about $40,000 a year.”

Funding for the commission comes entirely from fees from the railroad and utility companies that use the bridge. The railroad company currently under contract with the commission is Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited (CPKS).

“90, 91% of our funds come through the railroad,” Smith said.

The rest of the commission funds are from utilities fees. Five fiber optic cables and two disused gas lines run across the bridge, all of which is charged a fee. Railroad fees are calculated by the number of train cars moving over the bridge. The first 125,000 cars of the year (starting November 1) are priced at $5.44 per car. After 125,000 cars, the price drops to $5.10.

But Smith said counting the cars is not necessarily as it would seem. 

“The railroad doesn’t count cars like you and I do.”

Smith explained that articulated train cars, designated as such because of the type of equipment used to connect them to other cars, will only count as one car in terms of fees, despite appearing to the layman as multiple cars.

“So if we have a train that we would normally count as 120, 130 cars, it may only be 45 that they pay at,” Smith said. “So articulating cars play a big (role). We probably lose, on a per-car basis, about 35% of the cars across here due to articulated cars.”

Prices are set by negotiations with the railroad company. The commission and CPKS went into arbitration last year to settle on the current fees. The commission had not had an increase in railroad fees since 1991, when it costs $4 per car for the first 125,000 cars and $3.75 after that.

The arbitrators settled on calculating the new fees based on the expense increase for the commission for the past 10 years. The commission felt they should have gone back farther, Smith said.

Smith added that, in the past ten years, expenses for the bridge have increased about 37%, but have increased 265% since 1991 when the commission last saw an increase in rates.

“(The arbitrators) made the decision and we have to live with it. Or if we don’t want to live with it, then we can actually sue and take them to court,” Smith said. “Which is a lot more expensive, roundabout things because you never know where it’s going to wind up. We might not get an increase at all, but it was just easier for us to go ahead and take that and live with it.”

Construction on the Old Mississippi River Bridge began in 1928 and was finished in 1930. It was privately owned until 1947 when the company that owned the bridge, the Vicksburg Bridge and Terminal Company, went out of business. At that time, the bridge was purchased by Warren County.

The I-20 bridge that runs parallel to the Old Mississippi River Bridge was opened in 1973 and is operated by the Mississippi Department of Transportation.

The Old Mississippi River Bridge is now open only to railroad traffic, and foot traffic on special occasions. The reason the bridge is currently closed to automobile traffic is because of a decision made by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development (DOTD), according to Smith.

Smith said the bridge closed to automobile traffic in 1998 due to repairs that needed to be done on the Louisiana side. After the repairs were completed, the DOTD decided they did not want traffic flowing on and off the bridge on the Louisiana side, thus preventing the bridge’s reopening.

“We even set it up where if an emergency happened, like the interstate bridge closed down to one-way traffic, we could route that traffic through here,” Smith said. “(The DOTD) say the bridge is obsolete, it’s too narrow, this, that, and the other. But yet Highway 80 over there and Highway 80 over here are still two-lane roads and only have nine-foot lanes just like the bridge does.”

Smith is set to retire on June 30. Currently, the historic bridge can be enjoyed by the public several times a year when it opens to pedestrian traffic for special events.