WORLD'S GREATEST BRIDGE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15175, 14 December 1912, Page 2 (Supplement)

WORLD'S GREATEST BRIDGE.

TO COST £6,000,000.

A 1000 FT SPAN. Another monumental world ponder of New York will shortly loom up in the massive form of the, Hell Gate bridgethe fifth to span the East River—which is the central feature of the great railroad viaduct system, now under construction, to link Long Island with tho Bronx.

The New York , connecting railroad, which is to join thl New Haven system with the Pennsylvania, will be the greatest viaduct system in the world and the greatest engineering work ever undertaken by private enterprise. The total length of tho system on land and over water will bo 10 miles. It will cost £6,000,000: The chief engineer of the construction, Gustave LindentnaJ, estimates that, four years will be required for its completion. If it is opened for traffic in 1916 the navies of the nations will have been already passing to and fro through the Panama Canal for three years.

This system will include from three to four miles of bridge work and six miles of railroad construction on land.

The route planned is as follows :Beginning in the New Haven yards at One Hundred and Forty-second Street, Bronx, the line proceeds by viaduct to Bronx Kill, which- it crosses bv a bridgo of the lift type 500 ft long to a viaduct 2600 ft long, skirting the eastern short of Randall's Island to Little HelL Gate. A second bridge, 1000 ft long, crosses to Ward's Island, which is traversed by a viaduct '2600 ft long, to the shores of Hell Gate proper. Hell Gate's whirling waters are spanned by the line's new East River bridge, amonumental structure which in it3elf will represent an outlay of possibly £1,200,000. Between two massive piers of concrete, 250 ft high, tho four railroad tracks will be carried across a span of 1000 ft and over a series of mightv arches having a length of 5000 ft, in which 80,000 tons of steel alone will be used. Some of the individual members of this 'construction are 9ft in diameter and weigh 100 tons each. The carrying capacity of the Hell .Gate bridge will have to be 20 times greater than that of the old Brooklyn bridge to support four lines of tho heaviest locomotives. Two of the tracks; will accommodate the passenger traffic and the other two the freight. Roalty transfers, representing negotiations at fabulous cost, which have been in progress during a dozen years or more, nave culminated in giving the Connecting Railroad Company a clear right-of-way from Scaly Rock, on the Astoria ehore, to the terminal of the bridge in the Second Ward of Queens. In Long Island City title has been secured to 30 plots between Ditmar and Woolsey Avenues, covering 17 blocks from Chauncey to Cabinet-street, and to a £10.000 tract in Woodside for connections with the Pennsylvania-Long Island lines. Property consents on hold - ings valued above £2,000,000 have been filed with the Publio Service Commission. The actual river span of the Hell Gate bridge between its toners will be only 1000 ft, or some 600 ft less than that, of the old Brooklyn bridge, .the Williamsburg; and tho Manhattan. The Williamsburg bridge, with its approaches, has a total length of 7200 ft. Here are a few statistics of the world's greatest viaduct bridge : — Total amount of concrete, required, 400,000 cubic yards. In this some 4000 tons of reinforcing steel will be used, together with a large, but as yet undetermined, quantity of granite for foundations and facings. The girdlers, bolts, rivets, etc.. required amount to an aggregate of 80,000 tons. There will bo seven concrete arches of 60 to 100 ft clear span and one steel arch of 1000 ft span. The plans have been already seven years in process of preparation, find Chief Engineer estimates that four years more will be required for the completion of the work.

Great Bridges o! the World.

Queensboro" bridge, 7400 ft long. Williamsburg bridge. 7200 ft long. Manhattan bridge, 6855 ft long, Brooklyn bridge (with extensions), 7580 ft long. _ Wiesen viaduct (Switzerland). 10,000 ft long, one bridge 270 ft"high and 165 ft span, six other bridges 75ft span. St. Lawrence bridge (Quebec), 4000 ft long. Forth bridge (Scotland), 9000 ft long. Tav bridge (Scotland), 10,780 ft loner. Ohio River bridge, Cairo (111.), 10,560 ft long. . New York connecting railroad viaduct and bridges, 15,840 ft (three mines) long.