Nostalgia & History > Before the Nicholson Bridge

I wasn't aware that before the great Nichokson Bridge was built by the Lackawanna RR north of Scranton it replaced a dual portal tunnel 

here are some pictures of that tunnel as it was decommissioned by the Lackawanna 

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Do those tunnels still exist?

Can someone explain the benefits the viaduct provided over the dual tunnel route?   DId the viaduct shave off a significant distance for the route and solve for a difficult grade?  Was the tunnel difficult and expensive to maintain compared to maintaining the viaduct?   I'm sure that viaduct wasn't cheap so there must have been some significant benefits to building it.

Thanks for sharing news that there had been a double tunnel original route.  I was not aware of that.

Not so much the advantages so a viaduct over a tunnel. You have to look at the overall project, which was a WW1 equivalent of an interstate highway. Instead of clinging to the sides of the hills with a winding right of way, the Lackawanna built a super railroad, with steady grades and far wider curves. They did this by jumping from one side of the valley to the other, using big bridges (and built most of them with huge amounts of concrete, which had just become a lot cheaper and more widely available.). 

march_hare Wrote:
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> Not so much the advantages so a viaduct over a
> tunnel. You have to look at the overall project,
> which was a WW1 equivalent of an interstate
> highway. Instead of clinging to the sides of the
> hills with a winding right of way, the Lackawanna
> built a super railroad, with steady grades and far
> wider curves. They did this by jumping from one
> side of the valley to the other, using big bridges
> (and built most of them with huge amounts of
> concrete, which had just become a lot cheaper and
> more widely available.). 

The equivalent of the High Speed Rail project of 100 years ago?   Did the Lackawanna fund it all on their own or was the government helping?

The Lackawanna Railroad of 1900 was fantastically profitable.  They did the following major projects:

The Nicholson Cutoff north out of Scranton
The New Jersey Cutoff between Lake Hopatcong, NJ and Slateford, PA
Grade crossing elimination and elevation project between Newark and Morristown (to this day there are only 4 grade crossings between Hoboken and Dover on NJT)

In addition there were major station construction projects at Hoboken, Montclair, Binghamton, and Buffalo.  From the teens on they looked at major electricfication projects, only the suburban routes were completed as the Depression hit, the anthracite market collapsed, and the wealth of the Lackawanna dried up.

Tim

Milwaukee Wrote:

> The equivalent of the High Speed Rail project of
> 100 years ago?   Did the Lackawanna fund it all
> on their own or was the government helping?