The old railway bridge

"Bytown was located within the township of
Nepean, just west of the Rideau River, whereas New Edinburgh was located in the township of Gloucester, just east of the Rideau River. It was only in 1887 that New Edinburgh was annexed to Ottawa."
[...]
"McKay [1792-1855] was quick to grasp the potential of railroads, and he played an important role in the construction of the Bytown and Prescott Railway. Its charter was granted in 1850, and the company’s president was John McKinnon, a son-in-law of McKay. This 52-mile rail link ran east of the Rideau River, from Prescott on the St. Lawrence River through Gloucester Township to McKay’s mills [at the Rideau Falls]. The first train arrived in New Edinburgh on Christmas Day, 1854. During the following spring, a bridge over the Rideau River was completed, so that trains could directly enter Bytown, which was now only two hours from Ogdensburg, New York, and less than 24 hours from Boston."

From A VERY BRIEF HISTORY OF NEW EDINBURGH
By Robert Serré, President, Gloucester Historical Society

The remains of that "bridge over the Rideau," its stone supports, can still be seen near our house. Nowadays mallard ducks, mergansers, geese, herons and cormorants perch on these stones in the river, to preen themselves or look for fish. A plaque on the wall that once led to the bridge (visible in my photo) alludes to the history described above.

By car, because there's no opportunity to go by rail any more, it still takes a couple of hours at least to get from here to Ogdensburg or vice versa, depending on how much time you're held up by immigrations and customs at the border.

After rereading the above, I'm puzzled as to why the picture below was dated 1852, because this is surely a sketch of the bridge in question. Perhaps this picture was advance publicity for the bridge.