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By John Erickson

Home>2024 Trip to Horseshoe Curve>2024 Friday August 9th

Trip to Horseshoe Curve

Friday August 9th

Heading north through Pennsylvania Friday morning I was surprised to find a stone viaduct still in use. I had stumbled across the Starrucca Viaduct. It spans across the Starrucca creek, three streets and much of the town of Lanesboro, thus it qualifies as a true viaduct, whereas a true bridge spans only one item. The term bridge is often used to cover all structures that span one to multiple items though.

This viaduct was completed in 1848 for $320,000, and was constructed of concrete base piers, local Ashlar Bluestone Granite, rough cut to fit its particular space, and a hidden layer of brick to fill the inside. It currently carries two tracks of the New York, Susquehanna and Western Railway over the valley using 17 spans of 50 feet, at a maximum hight of 100 feet, for a total of 1,040 feet.

Just over the border into New York I stopped at the rest stop and saw a super heavyweight tractor trailer truck complete with a load onboard. It has all the amenities of a Schnabel car except that there is a trailer bed for the load to rest on and some sections of the trailer have hydrologic cylinders that allow for steering that area of the trailer.

The day ended at Albany-Rensselaer Station in Rensselaer, NY.