8/25/2023 0 Comments Tornado elk county pa![]() It was completed in a record time of just four months, which was made all the more remarkable considering the equipment used, forest fires and worker strikes that hindered construction. In 1900, the bridge was dismantled and replaced by a new iron bridge, twice as heavy as the original. By the turn of the century, locomotives had become heavier and the iron bridge could no longer carry the trains safely. When winds became exceptionally strong the viaduct swayed and trains had to slow down to 5 miles an hour. People came from as far away as Buffalo, New York, and Pittsburgh and took a ride across the viaduct.įrom the very beginning, high winds were a constant threat to the bridge. The Kinzua Viaduct became a tourist attraction. This process was repeated across all twenty towers. Then a wooden crane was constructed on top of the first tower and was used to build the second tower. ![]() Instead, a gin pole was used to build the first tower. The short construction time was made possible by the fact that no scaffolding was used. The bridge was completed in only three months by a shockingly small crew of forty. When finished, the bridge was larger than any that had been attempted, and over twice as large as the largest similar structure at the time, the Portage Bridge over the Genesee River in western New York. Engineer Octave Chanute decided it'd be cheaper to build a bridge across the Kinzua Valley than to lay an additional 13 km of track over rough terrain. The viaduct was built by the Lake Erie and Western Railway as part of a line from Bradford south to the coal fields in Elk County. The Kinzua Viaduct was first constructed in 1882, and at that time it was the highest and longest viaduct in the world measuring 92 meters tall and 625 meters long. On 21 July 2003, a fierce tornado struck northern Pennsylvania and destroyed a large section of the Kinzua Viaduct, a historic railroad trestle that was once billed as the “Eighth Wonder of the World”.
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