In Nicholson, the Tunkhannock Creek Viaduct is "our bridge."
"It’s a part of our town," said Marion Sweet, chairwoman of the Nicholson Heritage Association. "I don’t think any of us here could imagine the town without that bridge."
The Delaware Lackawanna & Western Railroad built the viaduct — dubbed "Nicholson Bridge" by the townspeople — from 1912 to 1915 as part of its 39.5-mile Clark’s Summit — Hallstead Cutoff. The project shaved 3.6 miles from the DL&W’s Hoboken-Buffalo rou te, but much more importantly, it eliminated about seven circles of curves, cut the maximum curve from over six degrees to three, and sliced the eastbound ruling grade from 1.23 percent to 0.68 percent, or 0.68 feet of rise for every 1000 feet of distance .
The project’s return was handsome. Single locomotives replaced multiple pushers, grade-crossings were gone, and trains made the trip more quickly.
Statistics are Staggering
Abraham B. Cohen designed the viaduct, and Flickwir & Bush, Inc. began construction in May 1912. The statistics are staggering. The 2,375-foot span is 240 feet above the creek, 34 feet wide at the top, and made of ten 180-foot arches and two 100-foot a rches, one in the fill at each end. Excavation for the piers ranged from 60 to 138 feet, and construction required 4.5 million cubic feet of concrete, 189,000 barrels of cement, and almost 2.3 million pounds of steel reinforcement. The steel was laid in a network of rods tight enough to deflate the legends of workers buried in the bridge after falling into the concrete. Three fell to their deaths, but none was buried alive.
Putting it all in place required 500 or so laborers, and a system of cable cars riding wires suspended from towers at each side of the valley and in the center. The system transported everything to steel falsework and wooden forms for the piers and arc hes. At ground level, the Lackawanna mainline delivered supplies to the viaduct’s base, and a narrow-gauge steam railroad moved concrete — later to be dumped from cable cars — and other material over temporary tracks on the valley floor.
Opening Day
Finally, on November 6, 1915, it was time to celebrate. Ceremonies got underway at Nicholson’s new viaduct-level station at 12:30 p.m. Governor Martin Brumbaugh and other state officials arrived on one special train over the new line, and Lackawanna Pr esident William Truesdale brought 200 company officials on another. Mayors of cities as far away as Buffalo took part, and early the following morning, the last passenger train traveled the old line and the first one covered the new route.
The old track was scrapped, but to reach several stations there, the DL&W built one branch to Factoryville and another to Nicholson and Hop Bottom. The Nicholson-Hop Bottom line left the new main about midway between those boroughs and sharply descende d in either direction. It remained in service well into the 1980s, decades after the Factoryville track vanished.
The branch was the pre-cutoff DL&W’s last operating trace, but much of the old right of way is intact. In fact, when you’re on Route 11, you might be driving on the railroad, since quite a bit of it was graded and paved. As it passes through Nicholson, Route 11 provides a close-up view of the viaduct, which is near enough to the road to be almost startling. But at least part of the bridge is easily visible from almost any point in the borough. If you somehow miss it, the doors of the firetrucks carry p aintings of it, the fire police uniforms carry its image on shoulder patches, and welcome signs at the edges of town have drawings of it.
Reasons to Celebrate
Nicholson celebrated the viaduct’s 50th anniversary in 1965, several years after the DL&W merged with its rival, the Erie Railroad, to form the Erie Lackawanna (EL). The EL in 1976 vanished into Conrail, which sold the Scranton/Binghamton segment to th e Delaware & Hudson. The D&H, in turn, became part of CP Rail, but Tunkhannock Creek Viaduct remained a quiet constant until 1990, when the 75th anniversary celebration focused renewed attention on it.
That celebration grew into the annual Nicholson Bridge Day, set for September 14 this year. The borough closes several blocks of Main Street for the event, which is sponsored by the Nicholson Women’s Club and features everything from crafts and a chic ken barbecue, to a watermelon seed-spitting contest and, of course, Nicholson Bridge souvenirs. If you can’t make the celebration, the bridge alone is worth the trip.
"Even if you’re not a railroad person," Ms. Sweet said, "everybody is really fascinated with the bridge. It’s a beautiful piece of architecture."
If you'’re at the Nicholson Bridge Festival, it’s worth a sidetrip to check out some other railroad viaducts nearby.
- The closest is eight miles north of Nicholson near Kingsley, where the Marten Creek Viaduct carries the former Delaware Lackawanna & Western Railroad across Route 11.
- North of the Marten Creek Viaduct, Route 11 meets Route 171 near the New York Border. Follow that road south to Lanesboro, where a scaled-down version of the Nicholson and Marten Creek viaducts crosses Main Street. It lacks an official name and only has one concrete arch, but it’s hard to pass beneath it unimpressed, especially if you’re lucky enough to spot a train on top.
- Less than a mile away you’ll go under the Starrucca Creek Viaduct, built by an Erie predecessor, the New York & Erie Railroad, in 1847-48. It was built to allow the straightest, most level crossing of the valley, and to head off a potentially fatal t hreat: if it had not reached Binghamton by December 31, 1848, it would have lost its charter. BT
Bob Tomaine, of Jermyn, is a bureau chief of the Scranton Times-Tribune.
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