John Alexander Low Waddell

: "For the British engineer, see John Waddell": "For the American sculptor, see John Henry Waddell"

John Alexander Low Waddell (1854- 3 March 1938, often shortened to J.A.L. Waddell and sometimes known as John Alexander Waddell) was an American civil engineer and prolific bridge designer, with more than a thousand structures to his credit in the United States, Canada, as well as Mexico, Russia, China, Japan, and New Zealand. Waddell’s work set standards for elevated railroad systems and helped develop materials suitable for large span bridges. His most important contribution was the development of the steam-powered high-lift bridge. His design was first used in 1893 for Chicago's South Halsted Street Lift-Bridge over the Chicago River; he went on to design more than 100 other movable bridges, and the company he founded continues to make movable bridges of various types. Waddell was a widely respected writer on bridge design, and an advocate of quality training of engineers. Many of Waddell's surviving bridges are now considered historic landmarks.

One of his most notable works is the ASB Bridge in Kansas City Missouri.It is only one of two of this design ever built, and is in use as a railroad bridge for the BNSF

Biography

Waddell was born in Port Hope, Ontario, Canada in 1854. He obtained his first degree in civil engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New York in 1875, and soon traveled to Canada to work with that country's Marine Department of the Dominion before spending some time with the Canadian Pacific Railway.

He returned to the United States where he designed mines for a West Virginian coal company. In 1878, he returned to Rensselaer and taught mechanics courses until 1880. Waddell then traveled west, obtaining additional degrees from McGill University in Montreal, Quebec and spending some time working at the Raymond & Campbell firm in Council Bluffs, Iowa.

In July 1882, he was hired as a foreign advisor by the Meiji government of the Empire of Japan and taught at the Tokyo Imperial University for a few years while he wrote two books.

Waddell returned to the United States in 1886, founding a new design company the next year in 1887 and establishing himself in Kansas City, Missouri. That company continues to exist today as Hardesty & Hanover. Waddell took on a number of challenging projects and soon demonstrated a strong ability.

Lifting and swinging bridges had been used for generations by this time, though not on the scale we know them today. Waddell was the first to come up with a modern design, originally intended to span a short channel into the harbor of Duluth, Minnesota. His design won a contest put on by the city in 1892, it was built in 1905 it is called the Aerial Lift Bridge and is still up today. Chicago, however, was willing to build the bridge, where it went up in 1893.

In 1920, Waddell moved to New York, New York and consulted on various projects there including the Goethals Bridge and Marine Parkway Bridge.

His wife died in 1934, and he died four years later, in 1938, in New York City.

Notable works

(not necessarily an exhaustive list)
* South Halsted Street Lift-Bridge (1893)
* Waddell "A" Truss Bridge (1898) (US patent|529220) [http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/hhh.mo0162]
* Hawthorne Bridge (1910)
* Armour-Swift-Burlington Bridge (1911)
* Steel Bridge (1912)
* Colorado Street Bridge (1913)
* Snowden Lift Bridge (1913)
* Caddo Lake Drawbridge (1914)
* Twelfth Street Trafficway Viaduct (1915)
* Detroit-Superior Bridge (1917)
* Interstate Bridge (1917)
* CRRNJ Newark Bay Bridge (1926)
* Outerbridge Crossing (opened June 29, 1928)
* Goethals Bridge (opened June 29, 1928)

Partial Bibliography

* [http://books.google.com/books?id=AXlVAAAAMAAJ "The Designing of Ordinary Iron Highway Bridges"] , [1884] (1891), 5th edition (in English). New York: John Wiley & Sons, 252 pages.
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=3bciAAAAMAAJ "System of Iron Railroad Bridges for Japan"] (1885). Tokyo: Tokyo University, 258 pages.
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=Dxc5AAAAMAAJ "De Pontibus: A Pocket-book for Bridge Engineers"] , (1898) 1st edition. New York: John Wiley & Sons, 403 pages.
* "Bridge Engineering", [http://books.google.com/books?id=nd4gAAAAMAAJ Volume I] and [http://books.google.com/books?id=bxAkAAAAMAAJ Volume II] , (1916). New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2,177 pages.
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=USwkAAAAMAAJ "Economics of Bridgework: A Sequel to Bridge Engineering"] (1921). New York: John Wiley & Sons, 512 pages.
* [http://books.google.com/books?id=0AMZAAAAIAAJ&pgis=1 "Memoirs and Addresses of Two Decades"] , with Frank Woodward Skinner, edited by J.L. Harrington (1928). New York: Mack Printing Company, 1,174 pages.
* "Vocational Guidance in Engineering Lines" (1933) by the Committee on Engineering Education of the American Association of Engineers. Waddell was a contributor.

External links

*
* [http://www.hardesty-hanover.com/ Hardesty & Hanover]
* [http://www.hardesty-hanover.com/TimeLine/1887-1938.asp Hardesty & Hanover Waddell bio]

References

* [http://www.hardesty-hanover.com/timeline/timeline_frame.html Timeline.] Hardesty & Hanover. Accessed December 20, 2004.
* [http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/beatldb/display/person_view.asp?ppl_id=126 John Alexander Low Waddell.] Accessed December 20, 2004.
*. Accessed December 20, 2004.
* Cydney Millstein. [http://home.att.net/~artarchives/millstein.html An Historical Perspective of Kansas City's Twelfth Street Trafficway Viaduct 1911-1915.] Accessed December 20, 2004.