The bridge is 1,452 feet (443m) long and 65ft (20m) high from water level to the top of the rail. It is composed of five 150ft (46m) spans and two 120ft (37m) spans. It was considered the largest reinforced concrete structure in the world when it was completed in 1910.[1]
Design and construction
Original plans called for the bridge to have a 1°30″ curve, which would have allowed speeds of 80mph (130km/h).[2] However, the design was altered and the curve on the bridge was eliminated in favor of making it tangent (straight) with curved approaches—a 1°30″ curve on the New Jersey side and a 3°30″ curve on the Pennsylvania side. The latter curve—the sharpest on the cut-off, which otherwise did not have any curves sharper than 2°—required trains to slow to 50mph (80km/h). Later,[when?] the super-elevation of this curve was increased, bumping up the speed limit to 55mph (89km/h).
The footings were excavated down to bedrock, which ranges from 26ft (7.9m) to 53ft (16m) below the surface.[4] A total of 51,376 cubic feet (1,454.8m3) of concrete and 627 tons of reinforcing steel were used to construct this bridge.
At its completion, the viaduct was thought to be the largest reinforced concrete structure built with a continuous pour process.[5]
There is no known evidence to support the legend that several workers fell into the concrete during construction and could not be extracted because of the need to keep pouring.
The bridge was completed on December 1, 1910, about a year before the cut-off opened, which allowed construction trains to haul building materials to work sites east of the bridge.[6]
Disuse and proposals for possible future use
The tracks on the viaduct were removed by Conrail in March 1989, five years after removal took place on the New Jersey section of the cut-off. Graffiti, cracking cement, other forms of concrete degradation and the growth of weeds all pose threats to structure following more than 30 years of disuse.
As of 2019, the Pennsylvania Northeast Railroad Authority (PNRRA) is gathering funding to commission a study to update the 2009 estimates of the costs of restoring service, including the bridge repairs.
In September 2020, Amtrak proposed the restoration of rail service between Scranton and New York City at some point before 2035.[7] The restoration of service along the Lackawanna Railroad's previous route would require substantial repairs to the bridge as well as the reconstruction of the Lackawanna Cut-Off. In 2011, New Jersey Transit began reconstructing a 7.3mi (11.7km) stretch of the 28mi (45km) Lackawanna Cutoff in order to restore rail service to Andover, New Jersey.
The Lackawanna Railroad in Northwest New Jersey, Larry Lowenthal and William T. Greenberg, Jr., Tri-State Railway Historical Society Inc. Publication, 1987, p. 74