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The construction of the Lackawanna Cut-Off was a mammoth engineering project that produced a railroad line west from Port Morris Junction — near the south end of Lake Hopatcong in New Jersey, about west-northwest of New York City — to Slateford Junction near the Delaware Water Gap in Pennsylvania. Built by the Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad (DL&W) between 1908 and 1911, the Lackawanna Cut-Off is shorter than the Lackawanna Old Road, the rail line it replaced, with far fewer and more gradual curves, no steep hills, and no grade crossings. The construction of the roadbed itself required the movement of millions of tons of fill material using techniques similar to those on the Panama Canal. The total project cost $11,065,512 in 1911. The cost to build such a project today, assuming it could be built at all, is unknown. The line achieved gentle grades and curvature for a route through the hills of northwestern New Jersey. For example, the steepest grade on the Cut-Off (0.55%, a change in elevation of about 27 ft/mile or 5.5 m/km) was about half that of the Old Road, meaning that far less horsepower would be needed to pull trains of the same size over the Cut-Off.〔 The Cut-Off was built without railroad crossings to avoid collisions with automobiles, horse-drawn vehicles and pedestrians. And all curves on the Cut-Off, except one (just west of the Delaware River, allowed speeds of 70 mph (113 km/hr) or more. DL&W chief engineer Lincoln Bush oversaw the planning of the project, while his successor, George G. Ray oversaw the building of the project.〔 ==Cuts and fills== Some 5,000,000 lbs (2,262,443 kg) of dynamite was used to blast the cuts on the line. A total of of fill material was required for the project, more than could be obtained from the project's cuts. This forced the DL&W to purchase of farmland for borrow pits.〔 The Delaware, Lackawanna & Western Railroad in the Twentieth Century (2 volumes) by Thomas Townsend Taber III, Lycoming Printing Company, 1980, 1981〕 Depending on the size of the fill, material was dumped from trains that backed out onto track on wooden trestles or suspended on cables between steel towers. During construction, several foreign governments sent representatives on inspection tours to study these new techniques.〔 The Pequest Fill extended west of Andover to Huntsville, New Jersey. It was at its maximum height tall and was long, requiring of fill.〔 Armstrong Cut was deep and long, mostly through solid rock. The line's deepest cut was Colby Cut (west of Roseville Tunnel) at deep.〔 Contractor David W. Flickwir worked around the clock in the summer of 1911 when construction fell behind.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Construction of the Lackawanna Cut-Off」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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