Starrucca Viaduct

Luciana Park is a small dirt-surfaced picnic ground on Depot Street, tucked against the north-east end of the viaduct. The interpretive panels erected by the Rail-Trails Council of NEPA and the Endless Mountains Heritage Region stand at its western edge, about 45 m (150 ft) east of the track centerline, so the whole visit happens beneath and beside the bridge rather than from a distant overlook.

Getting in is the only tricky part. The Uncovering PA guide describes the approach from North Main Street: Depot Street can only be entered in one direction, passes under one of the viaduct's arches, and a very narrow dirt lane branches right just as Depot Street starts to climb. That lane was heavily rutted in October 2019 but passable in a standard car. From the parking area it is a short walk back to the arch where Depot Street runs under the structure, which gives the view straight up at the masonry.

Trains here are not a timetable event. The line is a freight-only single track operated by the Central New York Railroad, with New York, Susquehanna and Western trains running over it, and no published schedule exists. Plan the visit around the structure itself and treat a train as a bonus; a scanner and patience help more than a fixed arrival time.

The viaduct crosses the Starrucca Creek valley at the edge of Lanesboro, a small borough in the Endless Mountains of north-eastern Pennsylvania. The interpretive panel gives the elevation as 1,000 feet (305 m) above sea level, the height as 100 feet (30 m) and the length as 1,040 feet (317 m).

The stone is locally quarried Pennsylvania bluestone, laid as random ashlar, which the panel quotes geologist Ralph Stone (1932) describing as weathered to a greenish gray to rust color. From the park the arches run away to the south-south-west in a long oblique line, and the protruding perch blocks at the base of each arch, where the 1848 falsework rested, are visible from directly below.

The setting is quiet and residential: Depot Street, the picnic tables of Luciana Park and the D&H Rail-Trail, which uses the old Delaware and Hudson grade through the same corner of the valley.

The New York and Erie Rail Road built the viaduct in 1847-1848 to carry its line through a corner of Pennsylvania, where it had to cross the state line to avoid difficult terrain in New York. According to the interpretive panel, some 800 men, mostly Irish immigrants, did the stone work for about one dollar a day; work was completed in November 1848, and on December 9, 1848 the first engine, the New York and Erie 4-4-0 "Orange" built by Norris Locomotive Works, crossed the bridge.

Construction was directed by James Pugh Kirkwood, brother-in-law of bridge designer Julius W. Adams; the panel gives the cost at the time as an estimated $316,770 and calls it the largest and most expensive stone arch bridge built in America. With the railroad's charter deadline looming, all 17 arches had their own falsework at once, using a half-million feet of timber. The piers and mortar used Rosendale natural cement, and the pier footings, 6 to 9 feet (1.8 to 2.7 m) deep, were poured concrete; the American Society of Civil Engineers describes the viaduct as among the first important engineering works to use structural concrete.

ASCE designated it a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 1973, and it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. Hudson River School painter Jasper Francis Cropsey painted it in 1865; the canvas is in the Toledo Museum of Art. Conrail took over the line from the Erie Lackawanna on April 1, 1976.

The Starrucca Viaduct has carried trains since December 1848, and the interpretive panel in the park is unusually detailed: construction figures, the falsework story, the 1871 D&H depot that stood beside it and the old Erie and D&H crossing at this spot are all laid out on site.

The Depot Street arch lets a visitor inspect the perch blocks and bluestone at close range from a public street, while the park gives an oblique view of the whole east face.