Gribblenation

  It’s taken about 10 years to reach this point, but the latest significant milestone in the replacement of the Wittpenn Bridge in northern New Jersey was announced recently as the new Wittpenn Bridge is now open to traffic. Crossing the new Wittpenn Bridge (NJ Route 7) across the Hackensack River near Jersey City. The upper photos show the westbound crossing; the lower photos show the eastbound crossing Both the old and new bridges span the Hackensack River near Jersey City, NJ in a heavily industrialized and heavily trafficked area in the New York metropolitan area. The bridges are located about three miles west of the Hoboken portal of the Holland Tunnel and this area has long been seen as an important crossroads point for both road & rail traffic in and around the region. The original highway bridge at this site was built in 1930 and featured a central vertical lift span along with a narrow four-lane roadway that may have been considered “modern” by Great Depression-era sta...

The early 1900s was a period of great expansion and construction when it comes to America’s railroads. During the period of 1909-1915, the Delaware, Lackawanna, & Western Railroad (or DL&W, or Lackawanna for short) oversaw the construction of four monstrous reinforced concrete bridges across northwest New Jersey and northeast Pennsylvania to serve its new Lackawanna Cut Off and Summit Cut Off tracks along the New York to Binghamton freight rail service. In due course, we’re going to discuss these four landmark structures, their local/regional significance, and how you can view & experience them up close (legally) for yourself. We’ll begin near the town of Hainesburg, NJ and the Paulinskill Viaduct, located a short distance from NJ Route 94 a few miles east of Columbia. Built in 1910, this bridge spans the Paulins Kill Valley with an overall length of about 1,100 ft with a height of up to 115 ft above the valley floor. To help span the valley, it features seven concrete ar...

Nestled in the scenic hills of northeast Pennsylvania, the Starrucca Viaduct is a 19 th Century railroad bridge known for its historic design and its impressive longevity. Opened in 1848, it was known as the world's largest stone-arch railroad viaduct as it carried traffic along the original New York & Erie Railroad. It has been suggested that this bridge was the first in America to utilize structural concrete in its construction, the material being utilized for the bridge’s foundations. In the mid-1800s, concrete was still an unknown quantity as a material and it was still considered to be experimental in nature at the time, making its use at this location a daring yet critical first step in the material’s evolution into a building block that modern construction could never be without. This bridge’s size and design anticipated the construction of a more-famous stone arch railroad bridge built about 25 years later in England. The Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire, Englan...