11/25/2023 0 Comments Rockville stone arch bridge![]() Its construction required 220,000 tons of stone and 150,000 cubic yards of concrete-a volume equivalent to nearly forty-six Olympic size swimming pools. The bridge is concrete to the core and surrounded by sandstone mined in Clearfield County. Spanning 3,380 feet, or nearly nine and a half football fields, it boasts forty-eight arches of seventy-foot span each. Resembling the aqueducts of the Roman Empire, the Rockville Bridge is truly a spectacle to behold. He built enough such bridges to earn the nickname of the railroad’s “Stoneman.”īuilding the Rockville Bridge was a monumental task, requiring workers and material from all over the state. Brown implemented Cassatt’s plan by designing and constructing two or three heavy-duty stone arch masonry bridges each year from 1900-1906. ![]() He is also known for building large, durable stone arch masonry bridges during the late 1800’s and early 1900’s. Cassatt, the president of the PRR during the early 1900’s, is best known for vastly increasing rail capacity by laying more mainline tracks, expanding rail yards, and building bigger passenger terminals. The current Rockville Bridge was built in an effort by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to provide more durable structures along its rail lines. ![]() ![]() The Marysville iron truss bridge began to limit the capacity of one of the PRR’s most profitable lines, and, thus, was replaced by the current bridge at the turn of the century. Iron truss bridges became infamous for tragic structural failures and began to be replaced. But with the twentieth century right around the corner, rail travel continued to steer American industrial growth and trains and their cargo became heavier. The original bridge was replaced by a double-track iron bridge in 1877 which was placed on the piers remaining from the wooden bridge. This bridge survived a fire in 1868, but by the late 1870s, as a report on the modern bridge to the National Register of Historic Places program had put it, it was “not large enough for the enormous traffic now being handled” at the apex of the Industrial Revolution. The first was a single-track wooden bridge, completed in 1849. The Rockville Bridge is the successor to two previous bridges in the same location. This 1905 picture of the Rockville Bridge captures the sweep of the structure and a little bit of everyday life (see lower right). Just north of the Enola train yards (once the largest train yard in the world), the Rockville Bridge is a National Historic Landmark and is currently used by Norfolk Southern and Amtrak railways. highway 15, on the west bank of the Susquehanna River, a community sign reads: “Welcome to Marysville, Home of the Rockville Bridge.” Opening on March 30, 1902, the Rockville Bridge was the most important and expensive undertaking of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. Its success was enabled by large infrastructure projects completed by the PRR during the first decade of the 20th century-such as the Rockville Bridge, still the longest stone arch bridge ever constructed, spanning the Susquehanna and heading west at Rockville.Īt the Marysville exit off U.S. The Broadway Limited was an icon of the Pennsylvania Railroad’s golden years. At night a pre-made bed can be pulled down from the wall.” This extravagant attention to detail attracted high-paid businessmen to Broadway’s train ticket booths. In one corner is a toilet disguised as a seat with a portable wash basin. In Joe Welsh’s illustrated history of the rail line from 1902 to 1955, Pennsylvania Railroad’s Broadway Limited, a porter describes the sleeper cars to a first-time passenger: “Within it are comfortable sofa seats with arm rests, lights for reading, controls for heating and air conditioning, a fan, wardrobe, shoe locker, luggage rack, and mirror. There were writing rooms outfitted with bookcases and dark-wooden desks, smoking rooms, barber shops, and dining rooms. The Broadway’s interiors looked more like hotel rooms than train cars. Since the round-trip was nearly 1,900 miles, the Broadway attracted passengers by boasting high-speed travel and luxurious sleeper cars. The Broadway Limited was one of the most widely used railways for travel from the business centers of the Northeast to the expanding Midwest. Before planes, trains were the primary mode of transportation for American businessmen. Porters grabbed the bags of boarding passengers and showed them to their sleeper cars where they would stay during the twenty hour trip to Chicago. ![]() This photo dates from around 1900.Īll Aboard!” Passengers traveling from New York City to Chicago scurried around Penn Station preparing to board the Broadway Limited of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company (PRR). The Pennsy made the crossing of the Susquehanna River an epic one with the Rockville Bridge. ![]()
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