P A U L I
N S K I L L V I A D U C T |
Architecture
in general is frozen music
--Friedrich Nietzsche
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Paulinskill Viaduct (Hainesburg
Viaduct), Knowlton, New Jersey |
explored & photographed by:
Shady The
eerily majestic Paulinskill Viaduct (aka Hainesburg
Viaduct) used to be part of the Erie Lackawanna Railroad system, which
threaded a scenic route from Lake Hopatcong to Pennsylvania and was abandoned
sometime during the early 1960's. This immense 115-foot-high
bridge was constructed between the years
of 1908-10; it consists of seven looming concrete arches spanning 1,100 feet,
high across the woods and the river below. Upon it's
completion in 1911, it held the record for the world’s largest railroad reinforced concrete viaduct.
Now, abandoned and unused, it holds only myth and memory. |
We set out to explore
this legendary giant one fine summer day... and while we knew the
thing was big, we had no idea just how enormous
it was until we finally saw it for ourselves. It is biiiiig.
We wanted to climb up into (and even to the top of) the Viaduct, so
we parked along the side of the road, and started looking around for
the best way up. I picked a route I wanted to check out, and
began climbing up a hillside so steep that when I was halfway up I
looked back to see the road below and a few fellow hikers who looked little ants! And with each step the
Viaduct loomed even larger... |
Finally we reached the top of a kind of
ledge on the hillside below one of the arches; under the corner
of the arch, we found a railroad
tie propped up against the base of one of the columns, with a
wily little spray-paint-devil standing guard just above. We kinda
used the beam like a ladder of sorts and shimmied up onto the arch,
and into the Viaduct itself. Once inside, a trail of rusty rungs on
sloping concrete lead straight through the heart of the Viaduct via
a series of open archways, and as we passed through each segment, we
could look out of the open sides to see that we were making our way
progressively higher... |
I couldn't help but think about some of the
rumors surrounding this place- such as the one about a worker being
killed and falling into the concrete of one of the columns during
construction, only to be left there for all eternity, entombed
inside the Viaduct. Urban legend says the spot where his body rests
is marked, and that his restless spirit roams the trestles in the
dark of the night. Also, whispered stories of murders, suicides, and
hangings at the Viaduct persist, adding to it's legend. |
We found pitch-dark rooms within the Viaduct's pillars, and more
rungs that lead up inside the pillars like ladders, leading to
the top of the trestle via manholes.
We ascended one of these and found ourselves on top
of the Viaduct itself. Being up on top of the Viaduct was
breath-taking, and a wee bit scary, as there are a lot of
spots where the railing has fallen away and there is absolutely
nothing between you and a deadly plunge to the concrete or perhaps
the river, over 100 feet below... |
Sinister messages scrawled in paint
urge you to take a step over the edge... no thanks... um, I enjoy
being in one piece. Some of the old
railroad ties can still be seen poking out side by side along
the rock-strewn trestle. There are stories about a phantom train
that barrels across the Viaduct on certain dark nights... and
standing up on top of the deserted old bridge, you can almost
picture it. After wandering around up there for awhile we were being
baked by the blazing sun, eaten alive by bugs, oh yeah and nearly
run over by some people on ATVs, so... we decided to head back down
to the river below to cool off... |
Cheech
helped me climb back down the wood beam cause I was having a
helluva time (it was a lot harder than it sounds cause that
thing was about 9 feet high and nearly vertical, with nothing
whatsoever to hold on to, and I'm a damned tiny person lol). The guys
were laughing at me and stood below taking pictures to
commemorate the moment as I nearly killed myself, ha ha ha. Thanks,
guys. Then, we headed back down the hillside to the welcome coolness
of the river, where we just kicked back for awhile... checked out some
more of the graffiti splashed onto the Viaduct's columns, and I
made a little sailing vessel and launched it down the river (where
it was promptly capsized by a fish). Yes, I'm a dork like that *wink*
Unfortunately, afterward I was going to take
some long shots of the Viaduct, from a distance, to show the sheer
enormity of the structure... but... suddenly, my camera screwed up
really badly- the disc got jammed inside and would not eject, and in
fact, I ended up having to send the camera back to Sony to have it
repaired, it was that screwed up. So, no pictures of the thing
from far away... doh, sorry guys (if anyone out there has any Paulinskill
pics of their own that they'd
like to post on this page, lemme
know!)
Do you have any background information or stories to tell about this abandoned
site?
Want
to purchase one of these, or any of my other photos...?
O W N A P I E C
E O F L O S T H I S T O R Y:
All
of my pics are available for purchase as
high-quality prints on Kodak glossy paper, in 5x7 or 8x10 size; framing
is available. Click
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+OUT OF
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