This is one of the first multiple-arch bridges designed by William H. Brown, the Chief Engineer of the Pennsy Railroad. The Rockville Bridge is a good example of one of his later designs.
This side looks "rough" because the bridge was built for just two tracks with the intention of adding two more tracks. So the stones are staggered so that the anticipated new construction could key in with the existing structure.
Photo from HAER PA,36-LANC,10--3 from pa3740 Perspective view of downstream elevation, looking due east. - Pennsylvania Railroad, Conestoga Creek Viaduct, Spanning Conestoga River, South of City Water Works, Lancaster, Lancaster County, PA
William Brown used stone instead of iron because of a suggestion by Pittsburgh Division Superintendent Robert Pitcairn. Only two tracks were built at the time because they decided to use "Gallitzin stone," a sandstone from the Allegheny Mountains, for better durability. To offset the increased transportation costs of that stone, they reduced the width to two tracks. [HAER-data]
Photo from HAER PA,36-LANC,10--1 from pa3740 Upstream elevation, looking south. - Pennsylvania Railroad, Conestoga Creek Viaduct, Spanning Conestoga River, South of City Water Works, Lancaster, Lancaster County, PA
The original bridge was built as part of the Pennsylvania canal system by the state-owned Columbia & Philadelphia Railroad. The 1829 bridge consisted of eleven wooden Town lattice trusses on stone piers for a total length of 1,412'. The PRR acquired the troubled canal system in 1857. In 1863 they "filled the approaches, reducing the viaduct's length to 349', and replaced the spans with a series of iron Whipple trusses." They must have needed a stronger bridge to carry Civil War supply trains because one seldom sees railroad upgrades done during the Civil War because the North would be spending railroad construction resources repairing tracks damaged down south by the Confederates. In 1886, the PRR began another round of main-line improvements. Foundations were laid for four tracks, but the width was never increased. The four-track main line from Philadelphia to Harrisburg was completed in 1900, but two of the stone bridges, Lancaster and Coatesville, had just two tracks. "Perhaps the PRR was then already planning a low-grade freight bypass, constructed from 1902 to 1905, which reduced traffic on the main line." [HAER-data]
Gregory D. Pawelski posted three photos with the comment: "Pennsylvania Railroad Conestoga River Bridge in Lancaster, Pa. - Then, Then and Now."
1 Pennsylvania Railroad Conestoga River Bridge in Lancaster, Pa. circa 1870-1880. (William T. Purviance Photo New York Public Library) Robert WannerWasn't built to support heavier Main Line trains, soon replaced.
2 Pennsylvania Railroad Conestoga River Bridge in Lancaster, Pa. circa 1900. (Fred J. Moll Collection) Robert WannerAdequate construction that is still there in 2018.
3 Pennsylvania Railroad Conestoga River Bridge in Lancaster, Pa. in July 2011. (Google Image Capture)
Harold Castleman commented on Gregory's post Here's GG-1 No. 4877 leading an excursion over the Conestoga River circa 1980.
The north side was finished with a weather-resistant facing. But the south side was intended to be inside a four-track bridge and thus protected from the weather. Since it was not protected, in 1930, Belmont Iron Works added bracing to tie the spandrel walls together. [HAER-data]
MichaelFroio, comments in source talk about Cambria Iron Works In a beautiful image by William H. Rau we see the Conestoga River bridge, one of Brown's first stone bridges. Utilizing the figure and boat as a device for scale in the foreground Rau is looking south, as noted by the finished facade of the bridge. To the left out of view is the Lancaster Water Works which still survives today. Photograph collection American Premier Underwriters, Inc
Ray Brunner posted PRR main line bridge over the Conestoga Creek, Lancaster Pennsylvania. Photo by A. J. Brunner c1940
NJT = New Jersey Transit CSAO = Conrail Shared Assets Operations That means that both CSX and NS trains use it.
This bridge was built with a swing span in 1896. Rather than replace the movable span, they added a 542' lift span with 135' clearance next to it in 1960. The swing span has been taken out of service, but leaving it saved the the cost of removing the center pier of the swing span. It was the first bridge between Philadelphia and New Jersey. [Bridge Hunter] Another reason a lift span was built next to the existing swing span is that the US Army Core of Engineers dredged a deeper channel. [sjrail]
sjrail, cropped Deleware River Railroad and Bridge Company (Delair Bridge) circa 1890
[The following text is from HAER, pp2-5] In 1896, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) was the first to accomplish the goal of spanning the Delaware River between Philadelphia and Camden, New Jersey. For three decades until the Benjamin Franklin Bridge opened to automobile traffic, the PRR's bridge (commonly known as the Delair Bridge) was the only crossing downstream of Trenton. The lower Delaware's extreme width, tidal current, and soft bottom made foundation work difficult, meaning that a successful design would need extremely long spans. When completed, the Delair Bridge had 533'-0" Petit through trust spans. This was an impressive length for the time, albeit a few feet shorter than the Chesapeake & Ohio's 1889 Ohio River bridge at Cincinnati, the record holder at 542'-6". Complicating the design further, heavy traffic on the lower Delaware required a high bridge, or else a movable one. PRR engineers compromised by building the fixed spans 50'-0" above the water and providing a swing span for the tallest vessels. The Delair Bridge is also significant for having set records at two widely separated points in its existence. In the mid-twentieth century, PRR retained Hardesty & Hanover to design a 542'-0'vertical lift span over a new navigation channel proposed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. While setting a record for the longest vertical-lift bridge with two tracks, it was two feet shy of the overall record, set by the New York, New Haven & Hartford's single-track bridge at Buzzard's Bay, Massachusetts, in 1935. As a result, the Delair Bridge hosts an unusual combination of two different movable spans m one structure (although the swing span was subsequently taken out of service). The Delair Bridge is 4,396' long, of which 2,453'-0" is riveted deck girder approach trestles. A lengthy trestle was necessary on the Philadelphia side to carry the railroad over city streets while climbin an 0.7-percent grade to the high truss spans over the river; the New Jersey approach is mostly earthen emabnkment. The girder spans are mostly 40', with some exceptions where the approach crosses Carbon Street (50'-3") and Delaware Avenue (77'-6") on the Philadelphia side. Each trestle bent is supported by four stepped granite footings on a wooden pile foundation. The shore piers, Nos. 1 and 6, are also carried on wooden pile foundations with 190 piles in each group, driven to bearing in a sand and gravel layer and capped capped with a timber grillage at 30' below water level. All of the river piers, Nos. 2 through 5, were excavated by Drake & Stratton using timber caissons; these were rectangular, except for a hexagonal caisson accommodating the cylindrical swing span pivot pier, No. 4. Pier masonry consisted of a concrete core sheathed in large granite blocks 18"to 24" thick, or 30" in the coping, with some blocks weighing more than 20 tons. The river spans originally consisted of three 533'-0" pin-connected Petit through truss spans, one on the New Jersey side of the 323'-0" swing span and two on die Pennsylvania side. Invented by a PRR bridge engineer, the Petit (or Pennsylvania) truss is a variant o fthe Pratt miss, with diagonal members in tension, a polygonally curved top chord, and intermediate floor beams hung from a secondary diagonal system. The intermediate floor beams reduce the length of longitudinal stringers between panel points, making a more efficient structure capable of spanning up to 600'.The fixed trusses are 84'-0" deep at mid-span and divided into 66'-7-l/2" main panels, with intermediate floor beams at half that interval. In the swing span, a 60'-deep pin-connected Petit through truss, the six main panels are each 53'-4", with intermediate floor beams at 26'-8". Pencoyd Iron Works used a traveling gantry crane to erect the fixed spans, each weighing 2,091 tons, on temporary wooden falsework. The swing span (931 tons including machinery) was erected in the open position, using the fender pier as a working platform.Several sources, including PRR annual reports, describe the Delair Bridge as "an iron structure," but this is simply the persistence of a nineteenth-century paradigm for metal bridges; the specifications called for open-hearth steel. The Delair Bridge is most significant for its two movable spans, representing the state of the art in the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries. The 1896 swing span has several innovative features, probably devised by C. C. Schneider, chief engineer of Pencoyd Iron Works' Bridge and Construction Department, who was known for his swing bridge designs.At midspan, two heavy floor beams deliver the truss's weight to the center bearing, an unprecedentedly large steel casting with a phosphor bronze bearing surface 27" in diameter. The Delair Bridge's vertical-lift span represents more man six decades of development in that type. A vertical-lift bridge is defined by a truss raised and lowered between two towers, balanced by counterweights falling and rising at either end. The U.S. had but one long-span vertical-lift bridge in 1896, at South Halsted Street in Chicago, designed by J. A. L. Waddeill. Because of the prototype's expensive construction and questionable reliability, it was not immediately popular. John L. Harrington, Waddell's partner from 1907 to 1913, seems to have been responsible for developing the vertical-lift bridge into a practicable design.Railroads subsequently embraced the design for long-span movable bridges. When, in the 1950s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed widening and straightening the Delaware River channel to serve industry upstream, a vertical-lift span was PRR's only option for providing the necessary 500' clearance. The railroad turned to New York-based consulting engineers Hardesty & Hanover, one of several descendants of Waddell & Harrington's partnership. They designed a riveted Warden through truss, 542'-0" long between bearings, to replace the fixed truss west of the swing span. Winding machinery atop each of the towers would lift the span up to 135'-0" above the high-water mark.The Delair Bridge's vertical-lift span represents more man six decades of development in that type. A vertical-lift bridge is defined by a truss raised and lowered between two towers, balanced by counterweights falling and rising at either end. The U.S. had but one long-span vertical-lift bridge in 1896, at South Halsted Street in Chicago, designed by J. A. L. Waddell. Because of the prototype's expensive construction and questionable reliability, it was not immediately popular. John L. Harrington, Waddell's partner from 1907 to 1913, seems to have been responsible for developing the vertical-lift bridge into a practicable design.IS Railroads subsequently embraced the design for long-span movable bridges. When, in the 1950s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed widening and straightening the Delaware Elver channel to serve industry upstream, a vertical-lift span was PRR's only option for providing the necessary SOO'-O" clearance. The railroad turned to New York-based consulting engineers Hardesty & Hanover, one of several descendants of Waddeil & Harrington's partnership. They designed a riveted Warden through truss, 542'-0" long between bearings* to replace the fixed truss west of the swing span. Winding machinery atop each of the towers would lift the span up to 135'-0" above the high-water mark. American ridge Co...erected the towers around the existing bridge with minimal interruptions to traffic. Meanwhile, another crew constructed the lift span on falsework atop a barge anchored off the Pennsylvania shore. The spans were swapped out, using the rising tide to lift the fixed span off the piers and the falling tide to lower the lift span into place. Once cables were connected to the operating machinery and counterweights, the new vertical-lift bridge was ready for operation. Crews then demolished Pier No. 2 to clear the channel. The bridge remains in active service today, carrying Atlantic City-bound passenger trains as well as freight.
The SS Marie Leonhardt, an oceangoing ship carrying iron ore to the new Fairless Works steel facility in Morrisville, allided with the bridge at about 12:45pm on Jan. 9, 1959, when the operator did not open it in time. This is one of the few lawsuits concerning allisions that was won by the ship owners. The reason the ship won was because the railroad had signaled all clear, but when it then tried to open the span after a train had passed, it could not because it was rusted shut. [sjrail, philadelphia-reflections] Remember, the bridge has a 50' clearance so the span would seldom be opened. But this inaugural run of an iron ore ship for the new USS plant required the span to open.
When built, the 323' swing span set a record as the heaviest to bear on a center pivot. [HAER, p3] That is the first time I have seen that pivot design. Most big swing spans use a bunch of rollers on the bottom of a big drum as shown below.
Michael Froio Photography posted Delair Bridge, looking west across the 542’ lift span over the Delaware River’s ship channel. Over the years my personal work has led to opportunities to serve commercial clients. I’ll be presenting a lecture Monday, October 22nd in Haddon Heights, NJ about these projects and the logistics of documenting fast paced engineering projects on the railroad. For more information please check out the event link https://www.facebook.com/events/1894687810613435/?ti=ia
The recently appointed head honcho at Amtrak is a former airline executive. He has been doing a good job of methodically wrecking Amtrak service. (E.g. Southwest Chief and Cardinal) So a railfan style video of the California Zephyr may soon be Industrial History. Fraser is on the D&RG Moffet Tunnel Cutoff route that UP now owns. It used to have heavy coal traffic. A couple of years ago, I read an article that indicated the coal traffic has dried up on this route. The article further stated that there is not enough freight traffic on this route to justify UP maintaining it to Amtrak's 79mph standard. (UP's main freight route is on its original transcontinental route up in Wyoming.)
I attended a social function in Fraser, CO. Since there was no traffic, as I went East over the tracks on Eisenhower Drive, I drove slowly so that I could look down the tracks in both directions for headlights. When I looked to my left, I saw the rear of a parked Amtrak train! So I turned left on Railroad Avenue and stopped to take a photo.
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I drove down Railroad Avenue so that I could get a better view of the head end.
The horn sounded indicating that people should get back on board.
There was very little visible exhaust as the engines pulled the train out of the station.
The tracks in this area parallel US-40, and I was headed west on US-40 anyhow. I was going too fast to pull in at the first crossover I saw. Unlike the midwest where there tends to be a country road every mile, there were no more crossovers. So when I got to where US-40 was going to leave the tracks, I stopped on the shoulder. It took a while to cross US-40 to the tracks side because the traffic was heavy. But it turns out I had plenty of time because the train was going slow.
1217, the headlight is down by the sixth power pole.
1218, the headlight is down by the fourth power pole. I have no idea why an Amtrak train would be going so slow. I can't believe the track is so bad that it has to go this slow all the way across Colorado. I was irritated by the slow speed because it was sprinkling rain and because I needed to be someplace east on CO-83. But I hung in there and got a video with my 18-55mm lens, complete with a raindrop on the lens. (new window)
On the way back, I wasn't driving so when my wife spotted a westbound freight parked on the tracks, I grabbed some shots. This is an overview shot. I knew the photos would not be "railfan quality." But I wanted to record that there was freight on this route.
Zooming in on the right side of the photo verifies that this was a manifest freight rather than an oil train.
A different photo allows me to read the locomotive numbers: BNSF #4581, CSX #4743, BNSF #7526
While standing on the steps of the east entrance of Fraser Historical Church, we saw the tops of some westbound locomotives. We counted seven of them. And it appeared that the tops of the freight cars were open hopper cars. I walked over to Eisenhower Drive so that I could look down to the crossing and confirm it was a unit coal train. So maybe freight traffic has returned to this route.
Since I wasn't driving, I grabbed photos as we crossed the tracks when we were back to Eisenhower Drive.
Looking timecard west, the Amtrak station is on the right.
Looking timecard east
In Tamernash, CO, I spotted a railyard from the road, so we turned of US-40 to check it out. Obviously, most of the tracks have been removed. I'm looking east so the topmost ridge is the Continental Divide. During the three days we spent in Fraser Valley, this is the clearest view we got of the mountains. There were wildfires burning in west Colorado, and later the smoke made this valley hazy. During some evenings, the smoke did make the sun look red long before it actually set.
We drove down the road along the north side of the yard so that I could confirm those yellow things were MoW equipment. I took a couple of overview shots, and then closeups of the equipment.
Ballast regulator
Tamper with the laser site folded up.
I believe the white thing in the middle is another model of a ballast regulator. The trailer on the right is a high pressure washer with waste water recovery and recycling built for UP by HE Hydro Engineering. The white tank is half full of some yellowish liquid. I scanned through the training video on the above linked page to try to find a screenshot of the referenced rail mats, but I was not successful.
So the Amtrak train should not have been going slow because of a lack of track maintenance. But I was surprised when I looked closely at the above crossing photo of the Amtrak station because no spike head was tight against the rail or tie plate. Every spike seems to be about an inch loose. But I've seen loose spikes on UP's, BNSF's and CSX's mainlines as well.
