Show A GREAT BRIDGE I JOEL BENTON WRITES OF A RAILROAD RAIL-ROAD ENTERPRISE The Great Structure Now Building Over the Hudson A Pleasant Visit to an Important Im-portant Engineering Work How the I Undertaking is Going Forward I Special I Correspondence NEW YoiiK May 25 Few people are very distinctly impressed I imagine with the stupendous work that is now going on at Poughkeepsie with reference to a railroad crossing over the Hudson river That a project to bridge the river at that city has been frequently talked of almost every body knows The opposition to it which always al-ways happens when any bridge endeavors to cross any navigable stream has done more than anything to call it to recent attention but even now the magnitude of the scheme is hardly realized by the general public When it is remembered however that the distance from shore to shore at that point is 3om feet that the approaches on the Poughkeep sie side consist of a viaduct of 3000 feet in length while on the west side the approaches add 1000 feet more making in all one and onehalf miles almostit will be l seen that the bridge is to take rank as one of the greatest structures of the kind in the world One bridge only it is said will be longer and that is the bridge over the Firth of Forth in Great Britain which is in progress but I which is not yet built I I A few days since on the invitation of Mr I J D Platt editor of Tho Poughkeepsie Daily i Eagle I joined a company of 150 who avail I lug themselves of the steamboat G S Has j brouck and one of the plcasantest of May days made a free and easy excursion around the piers and cribs of the bridge and for some distanm above and below the bridge site Too activity of the men engaged in the construction of this great work was thus easily seen About COO j are now employed on the spot which forre is soon to be increased onethird until 1000 are at work away and in shops on the iron and steel l which is to go into it I The promoters of this bridge have already I 1 gone through with quite a history in its behalf The company was organized first in a legal l I way in 1871 and the amended act in 1872 permitted the placing of four piers in the river at distances of not less than 500 feet apart In 1873 the work was begun but the financial panic which soon followed put an early quietus upon it Several years later it was taken up again when other difficulties called it to a halt Last year howe er new and extensive capital was enlisted and it is under the impetus of this accession that the structure is going so rapidly up Unless tbe charter is extended though it is expected this favor will be shown the whole work must be ready for use by Jan 1 189 Hence the present tumultuous hurry and rush of the builders seen from either shore Ihe present situation is this The shore piers consisting each one of three smaller piers lire built up from the rock to a height of fortyfive feet above high water The river piers to be carried down to a depth of from 125 to 135 feet below the surface aie nl underway In doing this part of the woik I open caissons of timber are built CO feet ide I by 100 feet long weighted by having pockets j filled with concrete and sunk by diedging through the open spaces which are twelve in number in each caisson This is a different differ-ent method from that used in the Brooklyn and St Louis bridges and whilo it is more effective it is said not to Involve the danger and xxpense which the pneumatic caissons do As the caisso sink they are built up by additions from the top so that when the lower edges rest upon the solid substratum underlying the mud and silt at the bottom of the river the top will be about twenty feet below the surface The open spaces are then filled with conci etc the top leveled and a solid platform laid upon it and then masonry built on this The piers when completed will have their length of eighty feet paiallej with the liver They will be twentyfit feet wide and will stand thirty feet above the surface The pier farthest west in the river was nearly completed years ago Tho caLson for the one next to it is done and the work of dredging is going on It is nearly dOnI to its final position tho top being already several sev-eral feet above the surface The third caisson cais-son is placed and is being forced down and caisson No4 is about completed The piles of timber and the car loads not yet thrown off on the west shore make an iinpicssive sight Although the bridge properly so called is to be of steel the false woi k and the wood sunken make heavy inroads on the forest The massive substructures will contain alone about 12000000 feet of timber To this add 40000 cubic yards of concrete and 20000 yards of masonry as additions to the iron and steel components From the various piers steel towers 200 feet high will be erected The height of the under side of the trusses above the water will be 130 feet There will be two rectangular steel truss spans each of 525 feet and SO feet high The three remaining remain-ing spans are cantilevers the cantilever arms being 100 feet each and the connecting trusses 212 feet The height of the connecting trusses will be 162 feet from the water surface and the height of the rail on top 212 feet The cantilevers extending from the river piers will be counterbalanced by the rectangular trusses and those on the shore pieces by inshore in-shore arms each 200 feet long attached to the anchorages I have not myself of course made these measurements but Mr Platt who made it possible to see the work nit n-it progress from every point of view kindly furnished the statistics I should have said however before finishing with figures that the viaducts are to be of iron and that about 15000 tons of steel and over 6000 tons of iron are to TO into the structure The bridge is building to connect the coalfields coal-fields and the west more closely with New England and to make freight expenses cheaper by carrying it over the Hudson without with-out rehandling It will have a double railway rail-way track and will be capable of holding with entire safety two continuous trains of eightyfive ton locomotives covering the whole length of both tracks the ultimate strength of materials being equal to five times this strain It is a problem even in Pougbkeepsie as to what effect the bridge may have upon the growth of that city But the general supposition supposi-tion is that it will be favorable It is claimed that as the bridge will make Poughkeepsie practically as near the anthracite coal fields ns TVeebawken now is coal sent to New York from there will certainly be compelled to cross the river at Poughkeepsie One thing the recent visit of out of town spectators specta-tors settled thoroughly at least for themselves them-selves if the piers which havo stood in the river for fifteen years have not settled it before be-fore and that is that the free navigation of tho stream will not be affected by a structure like this If the Great Eastern could not go through sideways it might diagonally and instead of impeding the channel the piers are much more likely to assist the naturally slow current of the Hudson in keeping the channel chan-nel deep Built as it is designed it will be a magnificent structure and one which it will be worth when completed crossing the continent con-tinent to see JOEL BENTON |