After the railroad built its adjoining bridge on the same superstructure in 1842 and until the Memorial Bridge opened in 1923, terrified teams of horses and screeching steam locomotives crossed the 1,650-foot wooden Portsmouth Bridge side-by-side. Teamsters were required to pay for the dubious privilege. According to a report in the Portsmouth Herald on Sept. 11, 1939, local No. 2024 was still on the eastern span when the locomotive, the tender and the empty first passenger car plunged into the river "as if thrown from a catapult."