I think DL&W engineering part of constructing the original railroad line through the Water Gap is the same as what other railroads did through mountains. It was cheaper and allowed for easier grades to follow river valleys through the mountains. I guess they took their chances with periodic flooding of the river instead of spending much more on tunnels and bridges and other expensive engineering projects. Ray In a message dated 4/7/2005 10:18:39 A.M. Eastern Standard Time, leesome1226_@_yahoo.com writes: The DL&W clearly had great Civil Engineers. It would have been impractical to move their tracks when they were only getting the 100 year flood every 100 years. Today we are getting a 100 year flood and an even larger one in the span of 7 months. Flooding of this magnitude was a rare occurance for the DL&W back then but according to Professor Ruggles is something that we will see happen more often in the future. ------------------------------
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