Joseph Tomlinson (June 22, 1816 – May 10, 1905) was an English-American engineer and architect who built bridges and lighthouses in Canada and the United States. In 1868, he co-designed and oversaw the construction of the Hannibal Bridge, the first permanent crossing of the Missouri River. He was the first person to hold the position of General Superintendent of Lighthouses for the new Dominion of Canada, holding that position beginning in January 1870. For eight years, he worked building railroad bridges for the Canadian government, and designed one of the most impressive bridges on the Canadian Pacific Railway where it crossed the Fraser River. He designed a railroad bridge over the Ashtabula River in Ohio, but was fired from the project after he refused to make supervisor-ordered changes to the design which he considered unsafe. The bridge failed on December 29, 1876, killing 92 people in a train derailment.
Early life and education Tomlinson was born June 22, 1816, in Ruskington, Lincolnshire, in the United Kingdom to Joseph and Ann () Tomlinson. His father was a land owner and farmer, and the family was related to Canadian politician Nicholas Sparks. Joseph was one of 14 children.
Tomlinson showed a strong interest in mechanical design as a child, but his parents sought to give him a classical education. When he proved disinterested in the classics, he was allowed to apprentice to a cabinetmaker. Tomlinson spent seven years as an apprentice, and soon his work surpassed even that of his teachers. During this time, he also enrolled at the Mechanics' Institute in Newark, Nottinghamshire. He studied draughtsmanship and mathematics and was considered an outstanding student.
Career Tomlinson emigrated to the United States in 1840. During the ocean voyage, he met a man from New Milford, Connecticut, who persuaded him to settle in that town. Although trained as a mechanic, Tomlinson discovered the practice mechanical construction in the United States was much different than that in the United Kingdom, and he found himself unemployed.
Early bridge work Shortly after his arrival in New Milford, Tomlinson observed a bridge being constructed near the town. Concerned that the bridge had not been properly designed, he informed the builder only to have his opinion disregarded. Tomlinson then informed his new friend, Rev. Noah Porter (later President of Yale University), about his misgivings. The bridge partially collapsed under its own weight as Tomlinson had predicted, and he was employed to help repair and strengthen it.
Tomlinson turned to the practice of engineering on the advice of Rev. Porter. To learn his new trade, he found work as a rodman with the Housatonic Railroad. He also worked for several bridge construction firms, learning the trade and principles of American bridge design. In his spare time, he drafted and designed bridges for himself, seeking criticism and advice from Housatonic Railroad bridge engineers he worked under. In time, the Housatonic asked him to study bridges designed by other engineers and make reports about them. He was eventually employed as a bridge construction worker and supervisor for the Housatonic Railroad, the Harlem Railroad in New York, and the Rutland and Whitehall Railroad in Vermont. Although most railroad bridges at the time were made of wood, Tomlinson foresaw that iron and steel would swiftly supplant wood as the primary construction material. A lifelong self-learner who studied and read widely, he learned the principles of iron and steel construction and engineering.
The first bridge to be built to a Tomlinson design was a railroad bridge in Pittsfield, Connecticut. It was constructed in 1844, and Tomlinson himself acted as the general contractor.
In 1849, the Saratoga and Washington Railroad resolved to build a tunnel through a hill in the village of Whitehall, New York. The tunnel was to carry a branch line of the railroad, which would terminate on the shores of Lake Champlain. This would give the railroad a connection with Great Lakes passenger steamships, and connect the lake by rail to the Hudson River. Several previous attempts to dig a tunnel had failed due to the presence of quicksand. When Tomlinson received the commission to design the dig and completed tunnel, he worked on his plans for 72 hours without a break or sleep. The tunnel, which ran partly beneath Church Street in Whitehall, was long, with walls of stone and arches of brick.
New Brunswick work
Tomlinson took a job as a bridge engineer with the government of the British colony (now Canadian province) of New Brunswick in 1854. Tomlinson later estimated he built 13 or 14 bridges a year during his eight years in New Brunswick. Nearly all the bridges he built in New Brunswick were made of wood. His designs were so sturdy that most of the bridges were still standing a half century later. The first bridge he designed and built was a long structure over the Hammond River, finished in 1855. The following year he built a long drawbridge with a draw span over the Musquash River at Musquash, New Brunswick.
The first Tomlinson-designed bridge to collapse was a lenticular truss bridge over the Grand Falls of the Saint John River at the recently founded city of Grand Falls. The New Brunswick Board of Works argued against a suspension bridge, and forced Tomlinson to design a lenticular bridge. The bridge opened on December 1, 1858. At 7 AM on December 18, the bridge collapsed after the tension-bar chain snapped in two places. Two men were killed. The cause of the collapse was defective iron, which became brittle in cold weather. The Board of Works assumed complete responsibility for the failure of the bridge, and Tomlinson declined to charge the government for his work. He designed a suspension bridge as a replacement; that bridge remained standing for decades, and became the best-known of his bridges.
Ohio and Missouri After purchasing a farm on the Cedar River in Putnam Township near Cedar Rapids, Iowa, Tomlinson moved there in 1862 and briefly took up farming. He moved to Cleveland, Ohio, later that year and began designing bridges for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway (LS&MS). He designed and built between 12 and 15 bridges a year for the railroad. Tomlinson moved into architecture as well, designing a number of buildings in Cleveland. Among the most important of Tomlinson's commissions was the Central Market, an indoor market space located at Ontario Street and Eagle Avenue. Built in 1867 at a cost of $20,000 ($ in dollars), the facility contained space for 200 vendors. Tomlinson also won the contract to build all the marble-topped meat and vegetable stalls inside the market.; ; Tomlinson also designed the Central Way drawbridge over the Cuyahoga River, which was built in 1866.; ;
His efforts on behalf of the LS&MS garnered him widespread notice in the railroad industry, and he signed several contracts to build railroad bridges in Indiana. He sold these contracts to others when the railroads failed to fund construction. From 1848 to 1849, he worked for Schuyler Bros., designing and overseeing some of the early construction on the Illinois Central Railroad during this time as well. He left this work after the railroad encountered financial difficulties.
Tomlinson got word in 1867 that civil engineer Octave Chanute was attempting to build a railroad bridge (the Hannibal Bridge) across the Missouri River at Kansas City, Missouri. He communicated with Chanute, expressing his interest in working on the bridge. Chanute hired him as one of the bridge's co-designers in October 1867. Tomlinson relocated to Kansas City from Cleveland to work on the bridge. Tomlinson designed the bridge's superstructure, and supervised the overall construction of the bridge. When the piers in the river were washed out, Chanute asked Tomlinson to rebuild them. Tomlinson created entirely new designs for the piers and their foundations, and then oversaw their construction. The bridge opened on July 4, 1869, with a ceremony in which Chanute presented Tomlinson with a gold watch. The bridge was the first permanent crossing of the Missouri River.
Ashtabula River railroad disaster
In 1863, officials of the Cleveland, Painesville and Ashtabula Railroad (CP&A; one of the predecessors of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway), decided to replace the wooden bridge over the Ashtabula River just east of the village of Ashtabula, Ohio with an iron structure. Amasa Stone was president of the CP&A. His construction firm had built the CP&A main line from 1850 to 1852, and Stone had purchased the patent rights to brother-in-law William Howe truss bridge in 1842. Stone resolved to construct a Howe truss bridge, a commonly used type of railroad bridge, and personally designed the new bridge. At long and high, it would be the longest and highest Howe truss bridge in the nation. Stone also decided to award the contract for the ironwork to the Cleveland Rolling Mills, an iron and steel company based in Cleveland, Ohio, run by his older brother, Andros Stone.
Amasa Stone's bridge was, by his own admission, experimental. He had constructed only one all-iron Howe truss bridge before, a high, long railroad bridge over the Ohio and Erie Canal in Cleveland. Tomlinson fleshed out the bridge design for Stone. He was alarmed when Stone demanded that the bridge be constructed completely of iron, rather than a combination of wood and iron. An all-iron bridge would have a much greater deadweight, reducing the bridge's live load (its ability to carry trains). He also concluded that the beams Stone intended to use were undersized. Stone demanded that Tomlinson make the changes he required. Tomlinson refused, and was fired. Stone then ordered the CP&A's chief engineer, Charles Collins, to make the desired changes to the bridge design. Collins refused, and was fired. Stone himself then made the changes to the design.
The Ashtabula River bridge was erected in 1865 using Stone's design and partly under his supervision. When the temporary wooden trestle supporting the new bridge was removed, the bridge buckled where the chords were connected to the deck. To correct this problem, Stone added more iron I-beams to brace the chords. This worsened the bridge's deadweight problem. Because the angle blocks were not designed to accommodate the braces, Stone ordered workers to cut away portions of the I-beams to make them fit. This further weakened the braces. During the repair work, workers inadvertently installed the I-beam braces sideways rather than vertically, weakening the ability of the braces to reinforce the bridge. There is evidence that some I-beams were then installed correctly, but that the angle blocks were damaged in the process. Furthermore, in every other joint, the diagonal chords were fitted to the angle blocks using shims rather than tightening the vertical beams and putting the diagonals under compression. Rather than rely on the truss design to carry live loads, the shims carried this weight by themselves. At the ends of the bridge, where Stone used only a single diagonal, only half of the angle block received load. This put enormous shear stress on the angle block.
At 7:30 PM on December 29, 1876, the Ashtabula River bridge collapsed in what came to be known as the Ashtabula River railroad disaster. Two locomotives hauling 11 passenger railcars of the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway plunged into the ice-clogged river below. The wooden cars burst into flame when their kerosene-fed heating stoves and oil lamps overturned, and rescue personnel made no attempt to extinguish the fire. The accident killed 92 people and injured 64.