Starrucca Viaduct is a stone

arch bridge An arch bridge is a bridge with abutments at each end shaped as a curved arch. Arch bridges work by transferring the weight of the bridge and its loads partially into a horizontal thrust restrained by the abutments at either side. A viaduct (a ...

that spans Starrucca Creek near Lanesboro, Pennsylvania, in the United States. Completed in 1848 at a cost of $320,000 (equal to $ today), it was at the time the world's largest stone railway viaduct and was thought to be the most expensive railway bridge as well. Still in use, the viaduct is listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artist ...

and is designated as a

National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark __NOTOC__ The following is a list of Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks as designated by the American Society of Civil Engineers since it began the program in 1964. The designation is granted to projects, structures, and sites in the United State ...

Construction

The

viaduct A viaduct is a specific type of bridge that consists of a series of arches, piers or columns supporting a long elevated railway or road. Typically a viaduct connects two points of roughly equal elevation, allowing direct overpass across a wide va ...

was designed by

Julius W. Adams Julius Walker Adams (October 18, 1812 – December 13, 1899) was an American civil engineer and railroad engineer, who designed the Starrucca Viaduct. He co-founded the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1852 and served as its president from 1 ...

and James P. Kirkwood and built in 1847–48 by the

New York and Erie Railroad The Erie Railroad was a railroad that operated in the northeastern United States, originally connecting New York City — more specifically Jersey City, New Jersey, where Erie's Pavonia Terminal, long demolished, used to stand — with Lake E ...

, of locally-quarried random

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitr ...

bluestone Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of dimension or building stone varieties, including: * basalt in Victoria, Australia, and in New Zealand * dolerites in Tasmania, Australia; and in Britain (including Stonehenge) * felds ...

, except for three brick interior longitudinal

spandrel A spandrel is a roughly triangular space, usually found in pairs, between the top of an arch and a rectangular frame; between the tops of two adjacent arches or one of the four spaces between a circle within a square. They are frequently fill ...

walls and the concrete bases of the piers. This may have been the first structural use of concrete in American bridge construction. It was built to solve an engineering problem posed by the wide valley of Starrucca Creek. The railroad considered building an embankment, but abandoned the idea as impractical. The Erie Railroad was well-financed by British investors but, even with money available, most American contractors at the time were incapable of the task. Julius W. Adams, the superintending engineer of construction in the area, hired James P. Kirkwood, a civil engineer who had worked on the Long Island Rail Road. Accounts differ as to whether Kirkwood worked on the bridge himself, or whether Adams was responsible for the plans with Kirkwood working as a subordinate. The lead stonemason, Thomas Heavey, an Irish immigrant from County Offaly, had worked on other projects for Kirkwood, primarily in New England. It took 800 workers, each paid about $1 per day, equal to $ today, to complete the bridge in a year. The

falsework Falsework consists of temporary structures used in construction to support a permanent structure until its construction is sufficiently advanced to support itself. For arches, this is specifically called centering. Falsework includes temporary s ...

for the bridge required more than half a million feet of cored and hewn timbers. The original single

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , commonly known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union (CIS ...

track was replaced by two standard gauge tracks in 1886. The roadbed deck under the tracks was reinforced with a layer of concrete in 1958. The bridge has been in continual use for more than a century and a half. In 2005, the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (3 ...

leased the portion of the line from

Port Jervis Port Jervis is a city located at the confluence of the Neversink and Delaware rivers in western Orange County, New York, United States, north of the Delaware Water Gap. Its population was 8,775 at the 2020 census. The communities of Deerpark, ...

to Binghamton, New York to the

Delaware Otsego Corporation The Delaware Otsego Corporation (DO) is an American railway holding company which owns the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway and the Central New York Railroad. It is headquartered in Cooperstown, New York in Otsego County. The company ...

, which operates it under the name Central New York Railway. The only railroad currently using it is DO's

New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway The New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway (or New York, Susquehanna and Western Railroad and also known as the Susie-Q or the Susquehanna) is a Class II American freight railway operating over 400 miles (645 km) of track in th ...

. The viaduct was designated as a

by the

American Society of Civil Engineers American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

in 1973 and was listed on the

in 1975. File:Jasper Francis Cropsey - Starrucca Viaduct, Pennsylvania - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Starruca Viaduct, Pennsylvania'', 1865, by Jasper Francis Cropsey File:Starrucca Viaduct reflected.jpg, October 2009 File:Starrucca Viaduct, Oct 2014.jpg, October 2014

References

* * * *American Society of Civil Engineers, Reston, VA
"Starrucca Viaduct."
Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks. Accessed 2022-01-26. * *

External links

Bridges to the Future
at Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania's website
Starrucca Viaduct
at ASCE Civil Engineering Landmarks
Starrucca Viaduct
at Bridges & Tunnels
Solid as a Rock: The Starrucca Viaduct
at Literary & Cultural Heritage Map of PA {{NRHP bridges Bridges completed in 1848 Railroad bridges on the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania Historic Civil Engineering Landmarks Viaducts in the United States Bridges in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania Historic American Engineering Record in Pennsylvania Erie Railroad bridges National Register of Historic Places in Susquehanna County, Pennsylvania Stone arch bridges in the United States

Construction

See also

References

External links