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(erielack) Building the entire Erie RR on PILES!

This is on page 46 of the Erie Magazine Centennial issue:

"When construction of the New York and Erie Railroad was getting
underway it was decided to build the railroad on piles in order to avoid
snow and floods. As is well known, the road was started in this way, the
idea being abandoned eventually after it had cost about $1,000,OOO.
More than 100 miles of this piling was completed but not even a foot of
rail was ever laid on the piling. The piling just rotted away. The
building of it in places was fantastically difficult. One spot was the Chester
meadows which later became famed as onion meadows. This was a
marshy morass. The piles were almost 50 feet long. In places it was nec-
essary to drive three piles one on another before a solid foundation was
reached. Some of the piles went down 140 feet. It had been planned to
make the whole railroad a sort of bridge or trestle from the Hudson
River to Lake Erie, In addition, thousands of loads of gravel, trees and
other material had to be dumped between the piles to secure them.
In other places the ground was such that gravel had to be dug away and
rock blasted before the piles could be driven."

I believe the Erie was well known for its ability to build on less than
optimum land conditions. It looks like they got some good practice right off
the bat.

This issue should be online within an hour or so thanks to Ron! I think
there's something for just about any Erie fan in this one.

Henry

P.S. SMT, your Eries are on their way back to you, thanks!

J. Henry Priebe Jr.    Blue Moon Internet Corp Network Administrator
www.bluemoon.net       Internet Access & Web Hosting
www.railfan.net        Railfan Network Services


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