Moodna Viaduct

A friend of mine, who is interested in creating a scale model of Moodna Viaduct for the Microsoft Train Simulator platform, sent me the following message:

"On Moodna Viaduct, I encountered information that indicates the track, and therefore the trestle was on a grade. The source claimed 2%. In the one picture I did think it curious the towers were nearly as tall at one end as they were by the creek. Is there any knowledge at your end to support or refute this? On the 3200' length, this works out to 64'... I would need to know if it is 2%. It's very possible the article rounded up (or down)."

Can anyone confirm or deny that Moodna Viaduct is on a 2% grade? In addition to this question, I am wondering is Moodna Viaduct on a curve.

Thank you for your time and help.

Sincerely,
Walter

I have some photos taken from the tracks at one end. It's straight and I didn't notice any grade - but I didn't bring my level either.

I never worked this line but when it was first put in to operation by the ERIE way back when, it was said that it was built to avoid grades and other problems on the Main Line through Goshen. I doubt if there is any substantial grade on the Viaduct.
Noel Weaver

My only familiarity with that area being I-84, I don't know about this trestle. Can you give us out-of-staters some info. on it? Looks pretty darned impressive. Is the RR still in use?

Someone out there must have a track chart. But in the meantime, as rough estimate, looking at topo maps and the elevation of cuts and fills on both approaches to the bridge, the track elevation seems to be about 460 feet (above sea level) on the south side approach and 420 feet on the north side, with a length of about 3300 feet. That works out to about 1.2% downhill going north (timetable west??). JS

that second image looks pretty flat to me. As for the difference in heights, in that second photo you can see where there is a cut in the rocks for the ROW. That might be the actuall difference in the heights that is indicated on the topo maps.

trainsinmaine wrote:My only familiarity with that area being I-84, I don't know about this trestle. Can you give us out-of-staters some info. on it? Looks pretty darned impressive. Is the RR still in use?

Yep, track is still active. Only freight I believe are locals, and NJT uses this trackage to reach Port Jervis.

Charlie

trainsinmaine wrote:My only familiarity with that area being I-84, I don't know about this trestle. Can you give us out-of-staters some info. on it? Looks pretty darned impressive. Is the RR still in use?

I was there in Sept of 2006 (was it really that long ago?). At the time there was quite a bit of NJT traffic going over it. I'll post a few more photos from that day.

One of the photos shows one of the concrete bases which looked pretty bad. I read a couple of years ago that they were doing some repairs to fix that.

Here are a couple more.

I've found some GREAT panorama software for Linux called Hugin. You can do a 360 degree panorama with no manual work. I used Stitch Assist on my camera to help me line up shot to shot. There's probably equivalent software for the Mac and Windows.

RussNelson wrote:I've found some GREAT panorama software for Linux called Hugin. You can do a 360 degree panorama with no manual work. I used Stitch Assist on my camera to help me line up shot to shot. There's probably equivalent software for the Mac and Windows.

This would be one place where that type of software would be really useful! There are several ways to do this on the Mac as well, but I've never had the ambition to try it. A friend of mine does it once in a while on his Mac however.

There is also the Quicktime VR type stuff that would be effective here. Perhaps it's time to go back and take some new photos.

Incidentally, back in 2006 there was a hiking trail with parking along Otterkill road at one end of the viaduct that led to the tracks at one end. That's how I got those photos of the top. In fact if you look at this spot on Google Maps in satellite mode you can see two cars parked there.

Here is a snip from the Conrail Albany Division 1991 track chart, which shows a 0.18% grade descending westbound. The bottom line is the grade profile.

I found the track chart of most of the Southern Tier (and about 100 others for Conrail) at http://www.multimodalways.org/archives/ ... harts.html Look about 1/2 way down for "Northeast Region Southern Tier District 1987", then look about 12 pages into that document. From MP 50.2 (Woodbury) to MP 57.3 (Lake Road ), which includes the Moodna Creek region at MP 55 just posted above, the track chart shows a downhill grade at a constant 0.18%, corresponding to about 10 feet per mile. That agrees with the topo map which gives an elevation for the track of ~480 ft above sea level for the track at Woodbury and ~410 feet at Lake Rd, a drop of 70 feet in 7 miles. At Moodna viaduct itself, it is a bit diffucult to make out exactly, since the topo contours are only every 20 feet, but it does seem to show a drop from a track elevation elevation of 450 or 460 feet on the east approach to ~420 ft on the west approach, for a 30-40 foot drop on viaduct itself (only 0.6 miles). But it sure doesn't look like a drop of only 5-10 feet, which would be expected from the average grade of 0.18%. That would say the downhill grade on the viaduct region itself is much larger (~1%) than the average grade of that region shown on the track chart. If that is true or if the topo is not correct, I don't know. JS
An engineer who actually ran trains on that region would probably notice that ~1% grade for that 0.6 mile section, if it exists, I imagine, especially coming uphill.

Link to topo I used: at http://mapper.acme.com/?ll=41.43008,-74.09853&z=15&t=T

EDIT: I gave a better (shorter) link to the map.

Hello,

Thank you everyone for the helpful information you gave me.

Since we are still on the subject of Moonda, does anyone know where was the actual location of the control tower (BS call letter?) on the east end of Moodna Viaduct where the Graham Line went down to single track to cross the bridge?

Thank you for your help.

Sincerely,
Walter Conklin