David Flickwir - Photo of Construction Engine

NW Mailing List nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org
Sun Feb 26 10:27:42 EST 2017


Abram:
Strange. I don't see David W. Flickwir is mentioned in nicholsonheritage.org
<http://www.nicholsonheritage.org/tunkhannock-creek-viaduct/> historical
narrative.
Just sayin', is he getting a little short changed?
These photos have gotten me thinking more about wire rope and cable
development.
Charlie Long

On Tue, Feb 21, 2017 at 7:14 AM, NW Mailing List <nw-mailing-list at nwhs.org>
wrote:

> David W. Flickwir (1852-1935) arrived in Roanoke as Construction Engineer
> of the Shenandoah Valley RR, rose to General Superintendent of the N&W's
> Eastern General Division in 1890, and resigned to establish his own
> large-scale construction contraciting firm in 1895.  His home on South
> Jeffrerson Street still stands.  Two of his major construction projects
> were building portions of the Lackawanna Railroad's New Jersey Cut Off
> (Port Morris Jct to the Delaware River at Slateford Jct) and Pennsylvania
> Cut Off (Scranton-Binghamton.)  Flickwir's greatest work was surely the
> construction (1912-1915) of the staggeringly massive Tunkhannock Viaduct 40
> miles northwest of Scranton - 240 feet high and weighing 670,000,000
> pounds.  (If you are ever in the area, do go to visit Tunkhannock - you
> will be awed by its immensity.   And the equally impressive 1848 Starucca
> Viaduct of the Erie is only 40 miles from Tunkhannock.)
>
> Steamtown holds the entire Lackawanna Railroad glass plate negative
> collection and each day releases scans of items from that collection.
> Yesterday's release included three photographs of the Flickwir work on the
> Pennsylvania Cut Off in 1913, one of which shows a Flickwir 0-4-0
> construction engine engaged in dumping dirt for a very large fill.
>
> http://lists.railfan.net/erielackphoto.cgi?erielack-02-20-17/B1485.jpg
>
> http://lists.railfan.net/erielackphoto.cgi?erielack-02-20-17/B1486.jpg
>
> http://lists.railfan.net/erielackphoto.cgi?erielack-02-20-17/B1487.jpg
>
> The images are interesting in that they show how major construction was
> done by steam locomotives and steam shovels, ropes, jib cranes, pulleys,
> sheaves and human muscle,  just before the advent of heavy machinery driven
> by internal combustion.
>
> -- abram burnett
>
> ===========================================
>                   Sent to You from my Telegraph Key
> Successor to the MAGNETIC TELEGRAPH LINE of 1844
> ===========================================
> ________________________________________
> NW-Mailing-List at nwhs.org
> To change your subscription go to
> http://list.nwhs.org/mailman/options/nw-mailing-list
> Browse the NW-Mailing-List archives at
> http://list.nwhs.org/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://pairlist6.pair.net/pipermail/nw-mailing-list/attachments/20170226/bea4ef74/attachment.html>


More information about the NW-Mailing-List mailing list