History The Ghost Highway-the Abandoned Pennsylvania Turnpike

Thanks mate, there are a few sections of the Hume like that to. But there OLD, like an old section of two lane in a local street.
The closest to a cool abandoned thing I have ever come close too is the old bomber strip at Woomera. It was built for the Pommy Victory series of bombers to fly in to.
When they stopped testing nukes and other heavy air delivered weapons out there, there was no further use for the strip.
On an exercise one year we pulled up in a field, or what looked like a field. I stepped out of the vehicle and was surprised to find it was tarmac with tall grass growing out of it. This stuff was waste high!
That strip is almost 5km long and almost 1km wide! Nothing exists of the buildings. hangars or tower though.
Doc.

 

Too bad it is in such bad shape. Also I guess no access. Can you say Drag race?

 

Good stuff...i will have to add it to my list of stuff to see before i die...

 

It seems as people were better drivers back then, I saw headlights turn on from just about every car as soon as they entered the tunnel. Now everybody relies on their stupid "day time running lights".

 

The Pennsylvania Turnpike wasn't the first high-speed limited access highway in America. The Turnpike's website cites the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan, the Bronx River Parkway, the Merritt Parkway in Connecticut, and the Arroyo Seco Parkway in Los Angeles. What made the PA Turnpike America's first Superhighway was that it was modeled on Germany's then-new Autobahns; with design standards applied consistently throughout its length.


From http://www.paturnpike.com/geninfo/history/history.aspx

"A standard sight distance of 600 feet was chosen. Straight-aways were designed for 100 mph and the spiral curves were superelevated to accommodate 70 mph. Easy grades (no more than 3%) were carved through valleys, ravines, and mountains. Almost 70 percent of the original turnpike was straight, with the longest a 40-mile stretch west of Carlisle relieved by one curve to break the monotony.

"Many innovations were introduced during the layout of the highway. When possible, the turnpike route was laid out on southern exposures to let the sun heat the ice and snow on the roads. Toll booths off of the turnpike were located on downhill grades to allow drivers time to react instead of being surprised. In addition to the roadway, there were over 300 bridges and culverts, nine interchanges, ten service plazas, and eleven toll booths to design."

This was truly the biggest project of its kind in the US at the time and the prototype of postwar toll roads and interstate highways in New York, New Jersey, Ohio, and elsewhere. As for why the three tunnels were bypassed, it had to be more cost-effective to run bulldozers over open land than bore 3 miles of new tunnels adjacent to the old ones. Maybe they should have done that originally!

An interesting tidbit: When the Turnpike opened in 1940, it was predicted that it would see 1.3 million cars per year. The Pennsylvania Turnpike now sees 156.2 million vehicles a year on it's 514 miles of pavement at a toll of about 4.1 cents per mile.

 

wow thanks for posting this info looks like i have one more adventure to ad to the list . Pa has a lot of interesting things here and there

 

Isn't Vulcanvania someone off that there abandoned road?

Awesome history BTW!

 

Thanks for the memories ! It's so sad to see the history falling apart like that . So much history on that stretch of road .

What's even sadder than that is our damn roads are like that now !

 

Thanks for posting, I love anything to do with "Lost America"!!

 

Cool! Have some cool, early decals I found...will scan them and add them as soon as I locate them.

 

An interesting article about the race team testing... as others have already mentioned.

http://www.thenascarinsiders.com/2009/01/08/ganassis-area-51/

The article has a link to a photo album, with even more pictures, for those of you who are interested.

I thought this place sounded familiar when I started reading the first post.

Thanks for sharing, interesting stuff.

-W

 

Very cool story.

 

Even though it's an old post, I haven't seen it before! I never knew this existed, will for sure have to check it out next time I visit family!

 

I looked it up on Google Earth the other day.............damn, Pennsylvania has a LOT of abandoned roads! When I found it I traced its path and it amazing what nature and man can do to wipe it out in a very short time. Hard to follow in spots

 

I just read this post and it started me thinking again about that road. In September, 1967, I drove my 331 Hemi/muncie-4-speed powered '47 Ford from Cape Cod, Mass. to Pueblo, Co. On the Pennsylvania turnpike near Pittsburg, very late at night, I was slowing down for a toll booth and I felt the clutch let go. I limped into a Howard Johnson restaurant. I was nearly broke, very tired, kinda scared, 22 year old kid and lucky for me the waitress befriended me. Long story short, the next day I changed the clutch, pressure plate, and throwout bearing right there in the parking lot and was on my way again. I made it to Pueblo without any more trouble, the '47 is long gone, but I'll never forget that night on the 'pike. Good times.