Bureaucratic bungling? This bridge was built by the Erie Railroad and the Erie's descendant railroads stopped using it many years ago. It remained abandoned until a tourist railroad started using it. Were the profits of this tourist railroad sufficient to maintain that property? Apparently not, which comes as no surprise. Why then would anyone assume it becomes the states responsibility to mantain it? Where does the cash come from to do so? Government has only one source of cash, us, the taxpayers. I won't go into a political discourse here. Rather, a philosophical one. What is the basic premise behind the notion that government ought to maintain that bridge? Presumably that we as citizens had a right to have it preserved, so we can ride trains over it. If you look around the world and wonder why it seems to be going to hell, this premise (in a much larger sense) is the reason. I won't go into a discussion of what properly can be considered as our "rights" This would require a book. But since I often feel the despair of "what can one person do?" I need to at least tell you all what the correct "rights" of man are. Because this is all one man can do, to not let his silence condone those ideas which he holds as evil. Men have rights to action, not to material things or services. Things and services are provided by men. One man cannot have a right to the product of another mans labor. That is called slavery. Man can only have the right to purchase those services. The primary right is the right to life. This requires the freedom to pursue those things required to sustain life. (The right to action) There is no right to food, there is the right to grow or buy it. You don't have a right to a home, you have the right to buy or build one. And, you should have the right to keep and dispose of the products of your labor, which is where government becomes the largest violator of rights.
This only touches the "tip of the iceburg" on the subject, but hopefully will provide sufficient material for further thought. If anyone would further discuss this, I'd be glad to do so offline.
I am sorry to have brought such a "heavy" topic to a forum dedicated to model railroading. It is all one man could do!