The Delaware River Viaduct is a

reinforced concrete Reinforced concrete, also called ferroconcrete or ferro-concrete, is a composite material in which concrete's relatively low tensile strength and ductility are compensated for by the inclusion of reinforcement having higher tensile strength or ...

railroad bridge across the

Delaware River The Delaware River is a major river in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States and is the longest free-flowing (undammed) river in the Eastern United States. From the meeting of its branches in Hancock, New York, the river flows for a ...

about south of the

Delaware Water Gap The Delaware Water Gap is a water gap on the border of the U.S. states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania where the Delaware River cuts through a large ridge of the Appalachian Mountains. The gap makes up the southern portion of the Delaware Wa ...

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...

and

New Jersey New Jersey is a U.S. state, state located in both the Mid-Atlantic States, Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. Located at the geographic hub of the urban area, heavily urbanized Northeas ...

, United States. It was built from 1908 to 1910 as part of the Lackawanna Cut-Off rail line. It is the sister to the line's larger Paulinskill Viaduct. The Delaware River Viaduct also crosses

Interstate 80 Interstate 80 (I-80) is an east–west transcontinental freeway that crosses the United States from San Francisco, California, to Teaneck, New Jersey, in the New York metropolitan area. The highway was designated in 1956 as one of the ori ...

on the east (New Jersey) side of the river and Slateford Road and the Lackawanna Railroad's "Old Road" (now Delaware-Lackawanna) on the west (Pennsylvania) side. Abandoned in 1983, it is part of an

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...

proposal to introduce passenger service between

Scranton, Pennsylvania Scranton is a city in and the county seat of Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania, United States. With a population of 76,328 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, Scranton is the most populous city in Northeastern Pennsylvania and the ...

and

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

, a distance of . The bridge is long and high from water level to the top of the rail. It is composed of five spans and two spans. It was considered the largest reinforced concrete structure in the world when it was completed in 1910.

Design and construction

Original plans called for the bridge to have a 1°30″ curve, which would have allowed speeds of . 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 . Later, the super-elevation of this curve was increased, bumping up the speed limit to . Construction of the bridge was described in a 1909 article by Abraham Burton Cohen, then a draftsman for the

Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad The Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad, also known as the DL&W or Lackawanna Railroad, was a U.S. Class 1 railroad that connected Buffalo, New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey, and by ferry with New York City, a distance of . The railroad was ...

, who went on to design the Tunkhannock Viaduct, an even larger structure on the railroad's Clarks Summit–Hallstead Cut-Off. The footings were excavated down to bedrock, which ranges from to below the surface. A total of 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. 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. This legend has been attached to other large concrete structures, including

Hoover Dam The Hoover Dam is a concrete arch-gravity dam in the Black Canyon of the Colorado, Black Canyon of the Colorado River (U.S.), Colorado River, on the border between the U.S. states of Nevada and Arizona. Constructed between 1931 and 1936, d ...

. 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.

Disuse and proposals for possible future use

The tracks on the viaduct were removed by

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

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 Concrete degradation may have many different causes. Concrete is mostly damaged by the corrosion of reinforcement bars, the carbonatation of hardened cement paste or chloride attack under wet conditions. Chemical damage is caused by the formati ...

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,

proposed the restoration of rail service between Scranton and New York City at some point before 2035.Amtrak proposes adding passenger train route from New York City to Scranton, By Borys Krawczeniuk, Scranton Times-Tribune, Nov 30, 2020, https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-amtrak-expansion-scranton-20201130-5agzmgj7k5dgrintppe6d22wm4-story.html 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 New Jersey Transit Corporation, branded as NJ Transit or NJTransit and often shortened to NJT, is a state-owned public transportation system that serves the U.S. state of New Jersey and portions of the states of New York and Pennsylvania. It ...

began reconstructing a stretch of the Lackawanna Cutoff in order to restore rail service to Andover, New Jersey.

References

External links

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Touring the Lackawanna Cut-Off
{{Crossings navbox , structure = Bridges , place =

, bridge = Delaware River Viaduct , bridge signs = , upstream =

Delaware Water Gap Toll Bridge The Delaware Water Gap Toll Bridge (also known as the Interstate 80 Toll Bridge) is a toll bridge that carries Interstate 80 across the Delaware River at the Delaware Water Gap, connecting Hardwick Township, Warren County, New Jersey, and Dela ...

, upstream signs = , downstream = Portland–Columbia Pedestrian Bridge , downstream signs = Railroad bridges in New Jersey Bridges over the Delaware River Bridges in Warren County, New Jersey Bridges completed in 1910 Lackawanna Cut-Off Historic American Engineering Record in Pennsylvania Delaware, Lackawanna and Western Railroad bridges Viaducts in the United States Arch bridges in the United States Concrete bridges in the United States Interstate railroad bridges in the United States 1910 establishments in New Jersey Bridges in Northampton County, Pennsylvania 1910 establishments in Pennsylvania

Design and construction

Disuse and proposals for possible future use

See also

References

External links