Rock Island Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1893-1920, 1907-05-28
HUGE RAIL BRIDGE
Longest and Heaviest in the
World to Span East River
at New York.
STRUCTURE TO BE ARTISTIC
Four Tracks, Two for Passengers and
Two for Freiaht-Links New Eng
land and the South.

Plans for the huge East river brid ye
of the New York Connecting railroad
We're filed recently with the municipal
art commission for its approval, In
accordance with the provisions of the
charter granted to the COWIaly, says
the New York Tribune. The new bridge
will SurpaSS all ever built or planned
to cross the East river and will be the
longest and heaviest steel bridge in
the world. First of all the bridges to
meet the eye of the passenger from
the sound three years from now, ii will
sweep in Il graceful curve oyer Hell
Gate. Wards island, Little Hell Gate.
EandallS island and the Bronx kills.
When it is completed and the last
spike driven in the four railroad tracks
to cross it. for the first time there will
be an all rail route through New York
between New England and the south.
Until the completion of the missing
transit link the trains, as heretofore,
will have to be carried down the East
river and across the harbOr. Although
these ferries, with the tide in their ia
vOr, easily beat an elevated train from
one Hundred and Twenty ninth street
to the Battery. the all rail connection
win save fully an hour and u half or
more and much trouble.
Besides designing bridge TO he OF
more than needful strength, the com
pany has sought to build one the ap.
pcarance of which will be in accord
with the increasing demand for arts
| tically Impressive structures. 1t has
| been designed by Gustav Lindenthal
| with whom was associated Henry
| Hornbostel as consulting architect
| Huge arches will be erected on the is.
| lands over which the bridge passes
| and the work of construction will pro-
| coed from these fOci in the same man
ner as the work on the Blackwelrs is
| land cantacver.
There will be a steel arch span OF
more than Il thousand feet across the
| turbulent Hell Gate between abut
! ments. The abutments will be mOnu
mental stone towers, dividing the
bridge proper from the steel viaduct
which forms the approaches. They will
be. of granite ut the base and nodded
concrete above. reaching up some 2Gt
feet. They will contain various small
rooms needed for the operation of the
railroad.
| VIII BE 40 Feet Above Water.
The tracks themselves will he 14C
feet above high water. five feet higher
than on the other East river bridges
They will pass through steel arches
which will rise $50 feet higher. Some
of the steel members of these arches
will be nine feet in diameter anC
weigh Il hundred tons each. Eighty
thousand tons Of steel will be used il
the construction of the bridge.
The carrying capacity of the new
bridge will he about twenty times
greater than that of the old Brooklyn
bridge, or equal to four lines of the
heaviest freight locomotives.
OF the four tracks two will be 70
passenger and two for freight service
The passenger tracks by way of cut
off in Queens county will connect will
the Pennsylvania railroad tunnels an,
its central station at Thirty-third stree
and Seventh avenue, Manhattan, ant
the Long Island railroad and its sen
shore resorts and city stations and n
of these lines with the New York, New
Haven and Hartford and other New
England lines. The freight tracks vii
I run across Queens and with the Lon
Island railroad will form big loo
around Brooklyn. Through freigh
from New England for the south an
west will he carried over this rout
and across New York bay from Ba
Ridge to GreenvilIe, n. J. Thus ther
will be two distinct routes for the tw
classes Of traffic, and neither will IL
terfere with the other.