Former Chikugo River Bridge (Chikugo River Lift Bridge)

One Bridge, an Important Cultural Property since 2003

Former Chikugo River Bridge, the Chikugo River Lift Bridge (旧筑後川橋梁（筑後川昇開橋）), spans the river between Okawa City in Fukuoka Prefecture and Morodomi in Saga City, Saga Prefecture, listed as an Important Cultural Property on 30 May 2003. The listing is as an Important Cultural Property, not a National Treasure.

The quantity is one bridge. The date field gives 1935, and the structure is a steel lift bridge with a span of 507.2 metres.

The Agency records that it is a vertical-lift movable bridge standing some 8.5 kilometres upstream from the mouth of the Chikugo River where it enters the Ariake Sea.

Registered First, Then Designated

The bridge passed through two systems in turn.

By the bridge's own record, it became a registered cultural property on 26 December 1996 and an Important Cultural Property on 30 May 2003.

Registration began as a system in 1996 and carries lighter protection than designation.

Properties covered here have either been designated only, or moved from Important Cultural Property to National Treasure. The great ceremonial drums took a hundred and nineteen years over that step; the gilded staff head eighty.

This bridge moved from registration to designation in seven years, crossing between systems.

In between, the railway line closed in 1987 and the bridge opened as a footway in 1996. It was registered after its working life as a railway bridge ended, and designated later.

Old and New Municipal Names in One Record

Names of local authorities differ between fields, one current and one not.

The address field gives Okawa City in Fukuoka and Morodomi within Saga City, using the name as it stands after amalgamation.

The owner field, however, names Okawa City and Morodomi Town. Morodomi became part of Saga City and no longer exists as a town.

Within one record, the address carries the newer name and the owner the older.

With the gilded mirror, the notes field kept a village name from the time of listing; with the clay figurine from Ebisuda, the name kept a town since amalgamated. Each of those sits within a single field.

Here old and new stand side by side in two fields of one record. The prefecture field names Fukuoka alone, leaving out Saga.

Six Kinds of Member Counted, and the Whole Counted as One

The parts are itemised closely, then the whole is counted once.

The Agency records two steel Warren trusses, two steel lifting towers, thirteen steel plate girders including one movable girder, two concrete abutments including a wing wall on the left bank, fourteen reinforced concrete piers, and one set of counterweight and hoisting gear including the machine room.

Six kinds of member, each with its own count. Added together they come to thirty-three units and one set.

And yet the quantity field reads one.

At Kobe College, three buildings and two corridors made one. At Kirishima Jingu, three halls joined by their roofs made one.

Here the members are counted by kind and the whole is then counted as one bridge. Bracketed details are added at three points as well.

Visiting

The reading field covers only the words outside the brackets. The name within them, the lift bridge, is given no reading.

With the Rai Kunimitsu blade, angle brackets, slash and round brackets were all reproduced in the reading. Here the bracketed words drop out entirely. As a way of supplying readings this is the fifth form met.

The assessment reads that this is the oldest vertical-lift movable bridge surviving in Japan, and valuable as such.

It continues that the design and construction of a large structure together with highly finished lifting machinery were achieved through close cooperation among engineers of differing specialisms, and that the bridge stands as a monument to the establishment of movable railway bridge engineering. Cooperation across specialisms is named among the reasons for its value.

The bridge is open as a footway. The management notes, however, that a fault in the cables has affected the lifting of the movable span. Check before travelling.