(
Satellite)
The B&O started on July 4, 1828 and reached Ellicott's Mills in May 1830. [
borailroad]
This town was the terminus when
Tom Thumb raced a horse.
The depot is on the left and the "Caboose Visitor Center" is on the right.
Baltimore & Ohio Ellicott City Station Museum posted two photos with the comment:
During the construction of the B&O’s Old Main Line in the 1830s, one of the challenges facing the builders was keeping the railroad as flat and level as possible. This was due to the engineering consensus at the time that early steam Locomotives would be incapable of pulling loads up an incline greater than 30ft per mile or 0.6%. As a result, the engineers of the B&O decided to chart the route of the railroad alongside flat rivers like the Patapsco River. By 1831, construction of the B&O had reached Parr’s Ridge, a hill that acts as a watershed between the Patapsco and Potomac River valleys. The steep rise of Parr’s Ridge was a daunting challenge for the engineers of the B&O Railroad.
B&O Chief Engineer Jonathan Knight would devise a solution for getting rail traffic over the Ridge, a series of four gradually inclined planes where rail cars would be pulled up the hill by stationary steam engines acting as winches to haul cars and locomotives up the inclined planes using ropes and chains. These stationary steam engines proved to be unreliable and teams of strong horses would often prove to be a more effective means at hauling the railcars up the inclined planes. By 1835 a mixture of horse power and steam power was used to get train cars over the ridge. During this process passengers were required to disembark their trains. By 1839 these inclined planes were abandoned, and a new line was constructed as a new generation of more powerful steam locomotives had proven themselves to be effective at getting over steep inclines.
A community would rapidly develop around the inclined planes at Parr’s Ridge. This town would become known as Mount Airy. According to local legend, the origin of the name was when an Irish B&O employee suggested the name ‘Mount Airy’ as their ears were freezing from the cold winds when crossing Parr's Ridge. As the railroad grew, so did the town, as much of the prosperity of Mount Airy can be traced to the B&O Railroad. In 1875, a station designed by E. Francis Baldwin would open on Mount Airy’s Main Street. In 1895, however, the railroad would bypass the steep grades of Mount Airy by building a tunnel. At the time of completion in 1901, the Mount Airy tunnel was the longest rail tunnel on the B&O’s Old Main Line. The line that came through Mount Airy was then reduced to a spur line. With the end of passenger services in 1949, the railroad would abandon the Mount Airy spur line in the 1950s.
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Fortunately, Steven Okonski drew a map of the three routes.
The South Branch Patapsco River is part of the Patapsco River watershed, and the Bush Creek is part of the Potomoc River watershed. The original 1831 route went through what is marked Ridgeville on this 1894 map. Steve's map shows that planes #2 and #3 were in Ridgeville. The loop to the north through Mt. Airy is the 1839 route that took advantage of stronger steam engines and made planes #1-#3 unnecessary. But plane #4 was evidently still used. In 1901, they dug
a tunnel at the location of planes #2 and #3 and went back to that route through Ridgeville. They also built a route around plane #4.
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| 1894 Frederick Quad @ 125,000 |
This 1945 map shows that the tunnel is south of Mt. Airy.
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| 1945 Mount Airy Quad @ 62,500 |
The red line shows the 1901 tunnel and the blue line approximates the 1839 route past the depot.
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