If this bridge was to be made it would be the tallest and longest railroad structure ever built. The New York, Lake Erie, and Western Railroad and Coal Company president, General Thomas Kane, met with the civil engineer Octave Chanute to discuss the viability of crossing the valley. They decided that the construction of a viaduct to transverse the valley directly was the best option. .
Chanute and Kane awarded the building of the viaduct to the Phoenix Bridge Works Company in early 1882. Anthony Bonzano of the bridge company told General Kane that they would "build you a bridge a thousand feet high if you'll provide the money."" So, Bonzano begun to plan the bridge with the help of Oliver Barnes, the railroads chief engineer, and they had finalised the design in less than a week.
The viaduct was to have a simple truss design and was to consist mainly of twenty iron towers, these would be held together with braces. The supporting legs of the towers were to slope inwards at 80 degrees to the top, where they would all be 2.7 metres across. The rail platform was to be built on top of the towers. The tallest tower would have a base spread of 31.4 metres at the bottom of the valley. The towers would then be joined by lattice work of tubular columns of .2 metres diameter and multiple tie rods for support. It would be a huge and awesome structure when completed, with the supporting structure dwarfing the railway line it carried and spreading far into the valley below. It would be 91.8 metres high and 625 metres feet long in the deepest part of the valley. Stone piers would be needed to support the towers. Hard sandstone was quarried from nearby hills to make these piers, and apart from these piers, the entire structure would consist of wrought iron (see Fig. 1).
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Fig. 1. Kinzua Viaduct Phoenix Bidge Company, 1882.
Erection of the ironwork began on the 10th of April 1882.