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The Washington, Idaho and Montana Railway is a short-line railroad that runs between Bovill, Idaho and Palouse, Washington. It was built by the Potlatch Lumber Company as a logging railroad, but it also carried other freight, passengers, and mail.
Engine 1 of the railroad and a railroad depot are preserved in the Commercial Historic District of Potlatch, Idaho, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Horseshoe Curve is a three-track railroad curve on Norfolk Southern Railway's Pittsburgh Line in Blair County, Pennsylvania. The curve itself is about long and in diameter; it was completed in 1854 by the Pennsylvania Railroad as a way to lessen the grade to the summit of the Allegheny Mountains. It eventually replaced the time-consuming Allegheny Portage Railroad, the only other route across the mountains for large vehicles.
The rail line has been important since its opening, and during World War II the Curve was targeted by Nazi Germany in 1942 as part of Operation Pastorius. The Curve was later owned and used by Pennsylvania Railroad successors Penn Central, Conrail, and Norfolk Southern respectively. Horseshoe Curve was added to the National Register of Historic Places and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1966, and it became a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark in 2004.
Horseshoe Curve has long been a tourist attraction; a trackside observation park was completed in 1879. The park was renovated and a visitor center built in the early 1990s. The Railroaders Memorial Museum in Altoona manages the center, which has exhibits pertaining to the curve.
Horseshoe Curve is on the Pittsburgh Line, the Norfolk Southern Railway Pittsburgh Division main line between Pittsburgh and Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Westbound trains climb a maximum grade of 1.85 percent for from Altoona to Gallitzin; just west of the Gallitzin Tunnels trains pass the summit of the Allegheny Mountains, then descend for to Johnstown on a grade of 1.1 percent or less.
The curve is west of Altoona in Logan Township, Blair County, at railroad milepost 242. The Blair County Veterans Memorial Highway (SR 4008) follows the valley west from Altoona and tunnels under the curve. Horseshoe Curve bends around a dam and lake, the highest of three reservoirs along the valley which are owned by the Altoona Water Authority and supply water to the city. Horseshoe Curve spans two ravines formed by creeks: Kittanning Run on the north side of the valley, and Glenwhite Run on the south.
In 1834 the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania built the Allegheny Portage Railroad across the Allegheny Mountains to connect Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, as part of the Main Line of Public Works. The Portage Railroad was a series of canals and inclined planes and remained in use until the mid-19th century. The Pennsylvania Railroad was incorporated in 1847 to build a railroad from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh, replacing the cumbersome Portage Railroad.
Work on Horseshoe Curve began in 1850 and took over three years. It was done without heavy equipment, only men "with picks and shovels, horses and drags". The entire line, including Horseshoe Curve, opened on February 15, 1854. The total cost for of track between Altoona and Johnstown was $2,495,000 or $80,225 per mile ($49,850 /km). The remaining part of the mountain inside the curve was leveled in 1879 to allow the construction of a park and observation area—the first built for viewing trains. As demand for train travel increased, a third track was added to the curve in 1898 and a fourth was added two years later.
Horseshoe Curve was depicted in brochures, calendars and other promotional material; Pennsylvania Railroad stock certificates were printed with a vignette of it. The Pennsylvania pitted the scenery of Horseshoe Curve against rival New York Central Railroad's "Water Level Route" during the 1890s. A raised-relief, scale model of the curve was included as part of the Pennsylvania Railroad's exhibit at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Pennsylvania Railroad conductors were told to announce the Horseshoe Curve to daytime passengers—a tradition that continues aboard Amtrak trains. Additionally, the engineer will blow the horn and the conductor onboard the Amtrak trains that pass through the Curve will wave (or shine a phone flashlight if it is dark) to the Virtual Railfan camera stationed in the park.
During World War II PRR carried troops and materiel for the Allied war effort, and the Curve was under armed guard. The military intelligence arm of Nazi Germany, the "Abwehr", plotted to sabotage important industrial assets in the United States in a project code-named Operation Pastorius. In June 1942 four men were brought by submarine and landed on Long Island, planning to destroy such sites as the Curve, Hell Gate Bridge, Alcoa aluminum factories and locks on the Ohio River. The would-be saboteurs were quickly apprehended by the Federal Bureau of Investigation after one, George John Dasch, turned himself in.
Starting in June 1990, the park at the Horseshoe Curve underwent a $5.8 million renovation funded by the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and by the National Park Service through its "America's Industrial Heritage Project". The renovations were completed in April 1992 with the dedication of a new visitor center. In 1999 Conrail was divided between CSX Transportation and Norfolk Southern, with the Horseshoe Curve being acquired by the latter. The Horseshoe Curve was lit up again with fireworks and rail-borne searchlights during its sesquicentennial in 2004 as an homage to the celebrations in 1954. It was designated a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 2004.
St. Louis Union Station is a National Historic Landmark train station in St. Louis, Missouri. At its 1894 opening, the station was the largest in the world that had tracks and passenger service areas all on one level. Traffic peaked at 100,000 people a day the 1940s. The last Amtrak passenger train left the station in 1978.
In the 1980s, it was renovated as a hotel, shopping center, and entertainment complex. The 2010s and 2020s saw more renovation and expansion of entertainment and office capacity.
An adjacent station serves the light-rail MetroLink Red and Blue Lines, which run under the station in the Union Station subway tunnel. The city's intercity train station sits a quarter-mile to the south, serving MetroLink, Amtrak, and Greyhound Bus.
The station was opened on September 1, 1894, by the Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis. The station was designed by Theodore Link, and included three main areas: the Headhouse and the Midway, and the Train Shed designed by civil engineer George H. Pegram. The headhouse originally housed a hotel, a restaurant, passenger waiting rooms and railroad ticketing offices. It featured a gold-leafed Grand Hall, Romanesque arches, a barrel-vaulted ceiling and stained-glass windows. The clock tower is high.
Union Station's headhouse and midway are constructed of Indiana limestone and initially included 32 tracks under its vast trainshed terminating in the stub-end terminal. Its Grand Hall, which cost around $6.5 million and was about 75 by 125 feet large, was considered to be one of the most beautiful, public lobbies.
At its opening, it was the world's largest and busiest railroad station and its trainshed was the largest roof span in the world.
In 1903, Union Station was expanded to accommodate visitors to the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair. In the 1920s, it remained the largest American railroad terminal.
At its height, the station combined the St. Louis passenger services of 22 railroads, the most of any single terminal in the world. In the 1940s, it handled 100,000 passengers a day. The famous photograph of Harry S. Truman holding aloft the erroneous "Chicago Tribune" headline, "Dewey Defeats Truman", was shot at the station as Truman headed back to Washington, D.C., from Independence, Missouri, after the 1948 Presidential election.
The 1940s expansion added a new ticket counter designed as a half-circle and a mural by Louis Grell could be found atop the customer waiting area which depicted the history of St. Louis with an old fashion steam engine, two large steamboats and the Eads Bridge in the background.
The station was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1970, as an important surviving example of large-scale railroad architecture from the late 19th century. It was designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers in 1981.
In August 1985, after a $150 million renovation designed by HOK, Union Station was reopened with a 539-room hotel, shopping mall, restaurants and food court. Federal historic rehabilitation tax credits were used to transform Union Station into one of the city's most visited attractions. The station rehabilitation by Conrad Schmitt Studios remains one of the largest adaptive re-use projects in the United States. The hotel is housed in the headhouse and part of the train shed, which also houses a lake and shopping, entertainment and dining establishments. Omni Hotels was the original hotel operator, followed by Hyatt Regency Hotel chain and Marriott Hotels.
St. Louis Union Station was the venue for the FIRST Tech Challenge World Championship component of the FIRST Championship, hosted in St. Louis every April until 2017, after which it was moved to Detroit.
Today, the station is home to the St. Louis Aquarium. At 120,000 square feet, the aquarium is home to more than 13,000 animals representing over 250 species.
The station's train shed area features The St. Louis Wheel, a 200-foot-high, 42 gondola observation wheel.
Inside the station is The St. Louis Rope Course, a 90,000 cubic foot, 3-story indoor ropes and zip line course.
Union Station has two light show features: one in the train shed area, and another inside Union Station Hotel's lobby.
In January 2020, Build-A-Bear Workshop, Inc. moved their global headquarters to downtown St. Louis inside the 68,000-square-foot Grand Central Building inside the Union Station complex. The company also opened their new Build-A-Bear Workshop Union Station headquarters store and also operates a Build-A-Bear Radio studio and other experiential elements at their new headquarters. Additionally, a ferris wheel, aquarium, and an abundance of restaurants have been added to Union Station in 2020.
MetroLink, the St. Louis rail mass transit system, serves Union Station from its station directly below the trainshed in the Union Station subway tunnel.
The St. Louis Union Station serves the Red Line and Blue Line.
It takes about 30 minutes to travel to Lambert-St. Louis International Airport's East and Main Terminals via the Metro Red Line.
Megabus previously provided express intercity bus service to Memphis, Tennessee, Kansas City, Missouri and Chicago from Union Station. Megabus moved to the Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center in December, 2014.
St. Louis Union Station has 24-hour taxi service at its north entrance on Market Street.
Approximate travel time by taxi, non-rush hour:
The city's major transportation hub station, Gateway Multimodal Transportation Center is located next to Union Station. It serves the city's rail system and regional bus system MetroBus, Greyhound, Amtrak and city taxi services.
In 1981, the disused Grand Hall was used in John Carpenter's movie "Escape from New York", during the film's gladiatorial fight.
The St. Charles Streetcar line is a historic streetcar line in New Orleans, Louisiana. It is the oldest continuously operating streetcar line in the world, as it has been in operation since 1835. It is operated by the New Orleans Regional Transit Authority (RTA). Officially the St. Charles Streetcar line is internally designated as Route 12, and it runs along its namesake street, St. Charles Avenue. It is the busiest route in the RTA system as it is heavily used by local commuters and tourists. On most RTA maps and publications, it is denoted in green, which is also the color of the streetcars on this line.
The St. Charles line starts uptown, at South Carrollton Avenue and South Claiborne Avenue. It runs on South Carrollton Avenue through the Carrollton neighborhood towards the Mississippi River, then near the river levee turns on to St. Charles Avenue. It proceeds past entrances to Audubon Park, Tulane University and Loyola University New Orleans, continues through Uptown New Orleans including the Garden District, and ends at Canal Street in the New Orleans Central Business District at the edge of the French Quarter, a distance of . With the exception of Carondelet Street and the downtown portion of St. Charles where the line runs in the curbside lane, most of the line runs in the neutral ground (the median strip) with greenery between the tracks.
Planning for the line began in 1831, and work began as the New Orleans and Carrollton Rail Road in February 1833, the second railway in Greater New Orleans after the Pontchartrain Rail Road. Passenger and freight services by steam locomotives began on September 26, 1835, originally without a dedicated right-of-way (it ran on public streets), although one was eventually established in the "neutral ground" (the median). Service began as a suburban railroad, since Carrollton was at that time a separate city, while areas along the route were still mostly undeveloped. Two locomotives "New Orleans" and "Carrollton" were supplied from England by B. Hick and Sons.
While the city's first experiments with electric-powered cars were made in 1884 (in conjunction with the World Cotton Centennial World's Fair), electric streetcars were not considered sufficiently developed for widespread use until the following decade, and the line was electrified February 1, 1893. At the same time, it was extended from the corner of St. Charles and Carrollton Avenues out Carrollton to a new car barn at Willow Street.
In 1900, the St. Charles and Tulane streetcar lines were extended on Carrollton Avenue and connected together, resulting in a two-way belt line. Cars signed St. Charles left Canal Street on Baronne Street to Howard Avenue to St. Charles Avenue, thence all the way to Carrollton and out that avenue, returning to the central business district on Tulane Avenue. Streetcars leaving Canal Street on Tulane Avenue were signed Tulane, operating out to Carrollton Avenue, then turning riverward to St. Charles Avenue, passing Lee Circle to Howard Avenue, and finally down Baronne (later Carondelet) to Canal Street.
In 1922 the New Orleans & Carrollton Rail Road was merged into New Orleans Public Service Incorporated (NOPSI), which consolidated the city's various streetcar lines and electrical production.
In 1972 automatic fareboxes were introduced, and the job of a separate conductor was eliminated from the streetcars. The line still has one of the Ford, Bacon & Davis 1894 vintage cars in running condition. Although it is not used for passenger service, it stays busy with work operations such as track sanding. The rest of the line's cars date from 1923–24.
In 1973, preservationists successfully listed the St. Charles line on the National Register of Historic Places. But it is not possible to provide the historic cars with wheelchair access doors and lifts in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). For this reason, it has been the only service in the system not to have wheelchair access.
In 1983, the RTA was created to oversee public transportation in New Orleans. It assumed the operations of city bus lines and the St. Charles line from NOPSI, which has since folded into Entergy.
In 2005, service along the route was suspended due to damage from Hurricane Katrina and the floods from levee breaches. The small section from Canal Street to Lee Circle was the first part restored. The section continuing up to Napoleon Avenue was re-opened for service on November 11, 2007, and on December 23, 2007 was extended up to Carrollton Avenue, near the line's original terminus in 1833. The restoration of the line on the remaining section along Carrollton Avenue to Claiborne Avenue took place on June 22, 2008.
The St. Charles line was listed by the National Park Service as a National Historic Landmark in 2014. This recognizes it as a place that possesses "exceptional value and quality in illustrating or interpreting the heritage of the United States," quoting the announcement from the Department of the Interior. It joins the San Francisco cable car system as one of only two moving streetcar National Historic Landmarks. (There are other moving landmarks, such as ships and trains.)
Following a lawsuit over access for wheelchair and other limited mobility patrons, RTA entered into a consent decree in 2017, agreeing to make six stops (each end, as well as Napoleon, Louisiana, Jackson, and a then-undetermined stop near Riverbend) ADA compliant. At least one wheelchair lift-equipped car was to be added to the line, but the historic Perley Thomas streetcars were not to be modified.
In 2020, to comply with the 2017 consent decree, RTA renovated three streetcars that had been originally built for Riverfront service with wheelchair accessible features, bringing the St. Charles streetcar line into compliance with the 1990 Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). This included repainting these cars from Riverfront red to the iconic St. Charles line green. The cars carry a wheelchair icon on their ends and sides. RTA also rebuilt car stops at six major intersections to allow wheelchair access. Wheelchair accessible service on St.Charles began on December 1, 2020.
The St. Charles Streetcar line operates frequent service 24 hours a day, with frequencies of every nine minutes in the daytime (after 7 a.m.), 18 minutes early morning (before 7 a.m.) and late night (10 p.m. to midnight), with 36 minute intervals in the night owl period (midnight to 6 a.m.).
The principal equipment of the line consists of 35 streetcars built in 1923-24 by the Perley Thomas Car Co. They have been rebuilt several times during their long service life.
The St. Clair Tunnel is the name for two separate rail tunnels which were built under the St. Clair River between Sarnia, Ontario and Port Huron, Michigan. The original, opened in 1891 and used until it was replaced by a new larger tunnel in 1995, was the first full-size subaqueous tunnel built in North America. (By full-size it is meant that it allowed a railroad to run through it.) It is a National Historic Landmark of the United States, and has been designated a civil engineering landmark by both US and Canadian engineering bodies.
The first underwater rail tunnel in North America was opened by the St. Clair Tunnel Company in 1891. The company was a subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR), which used the new route to connect with its subsidiary Chicago and Grand Trunk Railway, predecessor to the Grand Trunk Western Railroad (GTW). Before the tunnel's construction, Grand Trunk was forced to use time-consuming rail ferries to transfer cargo.
The tunnel was an engineering marvel in its day and designed by Joseph Hobson. The development of original techniques were achieved for excavating in a compressed air environment. The Beach tunnelling shield, designed by Alfred Ely Beach, was used to assist workmen in removing material from the route of the tunnel and left a continuous iron tube nearly long. Freight trains used the tunnel initially with the first passenger trains using it in 1892.
The tunnel measured from portal to portal. The actual width of the St. Clair River at this crossing is only . The tube had a diameter of and hosted a single standard gauge track. It was built at a cost of $2.7 million.
Steam locomotives were used in the early years to pull trains through the tunnel, however concerns about the potential dangers of suffocation should a train stall in the tunnel led to the installation of catenary wires for electric-powered locomotives by 1907. The first use of electric locomotives through the tunnel in regular service occurred on May 17, 1908. The locomotives were built by Baldwin-Westinghouse.
In 1923, the GTR was nationalized by Canada's federal government, which then merged the bankrupt railway into the recently formed Canadian National Railway. CN also assumed control of Grand Trunk Western as a subsidiary and the tunnel company and continued operations much as before.
The electric-powered locomotives were retired in 1958 and scrapped in 1959 after CN retired and scrapped its last steam-powered locomotives on trains passing through the tunnel. New diesel-powered locomotives did not cause the same problems with air quality in this relatively short tunnel.
After the Second World War, railways in North America started to see the dimensions of freight cars increase. Canadian National (identified as CN after 1960) was forced to rely upon rail ferries to carry freight cars, such as hicube boxcars, automobile carriers, certain intermodal cars and chemical tankers, which exceeded the limits of the tunnel's dimensions.
The tunnel was designated a Civil Engineering Landmark by both the Canadian and the American Societies of Civil Engineers in 1991.
The tunnel was declared a U.S. National Historic Landmark in 1993.
The construction of the tunnel has also been recognized as National Historic Event by Parks Canada since 1992, with a plaque at the site.
The second tunnel was built to handle intermodal rail cars with double-stacked shipping containers, which could not fit through the original tunnel or the Michigan Central Railway Tunnel in Detroit. By the early 1990s, CN had commissioned engineering studies for a replacement tunnel to be built adjacent to the existing St. Clair River tunnel. In 1992, new CN president Paul Tellier foresaw that CN would increase its traffic in the Toronto–Chicago corridor. The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement was implemented in 1989 and discussions for a North American Free Trade Agreement between Canada, the United States and Mexico discussions were underway at that time (NAFTA was implemented in 1994). It was only logical that import/export traffic on CN's corridor would increase dramatically.
In 1993, CN began construction of the newer and larger tunnel. Tellier declared at the ceremonies:
"[the] tunnel will give CN the efficiencies it needs to become a strong competitive force in North American transportation"
Unlike the first tunnel, which was hand dug from both ends, an earth boring machine called the "Excalibore" made by the Lovat Tunnel Equipment Inc. was used. It started on the Canadian side and dug its way to the U.S.
The tunnel opened later in 1994 whereupon freight and passenger trains stopped using the adjacent original tunnel, whose bore was sealed. The new tunnel was dedicated on May 5, 1995 and measures from portal to portal with a bore diameter of with a single standard gauge track. It could accommodate all freight cars currently in service in North America, thus the rail ferries were also retired in 1994 at the time of the tunnel's completion and opening for service.
On November 30, 2004, CN announced that the new St. Clair River tunnel would be named the Paul M. Tellier Tunnel in honour of the company's retired president, Paul Tellier, who foresaw the impact the tunnel would have on CN's eastern freight corridor. A sign now hangs over each tunnel portal with this name.
On June 28, 2019, train CN M383-28, hauling 100+ cars, had 40 cars derail in the tunnel, spilling 13,700 gallons of sulfuric acid and closing the tunnel for several days afterwards. The tunnel re-opened on July 10, 2019.
Dennison is a historic railway station located at 400 Center Street in Dennison, Ohio. The depot was built between 1884 and 1900, and the baggage room was built circa 1912. The station is located midway between Dennison and Uhrichsville, Ohio, and served both communities.
The station was added to the National Register of Historic Places on September 8, 1976, as the Pennsylvania Railroad Depot and Baggage Room. It was designated as a National Historic Landmark on June 17, 2011. It is now a local history museum.
The Thomas Viaduct spans the Patapsco River and Patapsco Valley between Relay, Maryland and Elkridge, Maryland, USA. It was commissioned by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O); built between July 4, 1833, and July 4, 1835; and named for Philip E. Thomas, the company's first president. It remains the world's oldest multiple arched stone railroad bridge.
At its completion, the Thomas Viaduct was the largest railroad bridge in the United States and the country's first multi-span masonry railroad bridge to be built on a curve. In 1964, it was designated as a National Historic Landmark. In 2010, the bridge was designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The viaduct is now owned and operated by CSX Transportation and still in use today, making it one of the oldest railroad bridges still in service.
This Roman-arch stone bridge is divided into eight spans. It was designed by Benjamin Henry Latrobe, II, then B&O's assistant engineer and later its chief engineer. The main design problem to overcome was that of constructing such a large bridge on a curve. The design called for several variations in span and pier widths between the opposite sides of the structure. This problem was solved by having the lateral pier faces laid out on radial lines, making the piers essentially wedge-shaped and fitted to the 4-degree curve.
The viaduct was built by John McCartney of Ohio, who received the contract after completing the Patterson Viaduct. Caspar Wever, the railroad's chief of construction, supervised the work.
The span of the viaduct is long; the individual arches are roughly in span, with a height of from the water level to the base of the rail. The width at the top of the spandrel wall copings is . The bridge is constructed using a rough-dressed Maryland granite ashlar from Patapsco River quarries, known as Woodstock granite.
A wooden-floored walkway built for pedestrian and railway employee use is wide and supported by cast iron brackets and edged with ornamental cast iron railings. The viaduct contains of masonry and cost $142,236.51, equal to $ today.
When the Thomas Viaduct was completed, a obelisk with the names of the builder, directors of the railroad, the architect (engineer) and others associated with the viaduct was erected at the east end in Relay, by builder John McCartney. On one side the monument reads: "The Thomas Viaduct, Commenced July 4, 1833 Finished, July 4, 1835". He also celebrated the completed work by having his men kneel on the deck of the viaduct while mock "baptizing" them with a pint of whiskey.
Until after the American Civil War, the B&O was the only railroad into Washington, D.C., thus the Thomas Viaduct was essential for supply trains to reach the capital of the Union during that conflict. To prevent sabotage, the bridge was heavily guarded by Union troops stationed along its length.
From the 1880s to the 1950s, Thomas Viaduct carried B&O's famed "Royal Blue Line" passenger trains between New York and Washington. Until the late 1960s, the bridge also carried B&O passenger trains traveling to points west of Washington, such as the "Capital Limited" to Chicago and the "National Limited" to St. Louis.
With the advent of Amtrak on May 1, 1971, B&O ended its passenger train service, except for local Baltimore–Washington commuter trains. In 1986, CSX acquired the B&O and all of its trackage, including the Thomas Viaduct. Today, MARC's "Camden Line" train service runs daily trains over the Viaduct. "See" Capital Subdivision.
During design and construction, the Thomas Viaduct was nicknamed "Latrobe's Folly" after the designer Benjamin Latrobe II, because at the time many doubted that it could even support its own weight. Contrary to these predictions, the Thomas Viaduct survived the great flood of 1868 as well as Hurricane Agnes in 1972, two floods that wiped out the Patapsco Valley and destroyed nearly everything in their path; and to this day it continues to carry 300-ton (270 tonne) diesel locomotives passengers and heavy freight traffic.
The bridge was designated a National Historic Landmark on January 28, 1964, and administratively listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 15, 1966. In 2010, the bridge designated as a National Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
In 2014 and 2015, the non-profit historic preservation organization Preservation Howard County placed the Viaduct on its list of the top 10 endangered historic places in Howard County. The Patapsco Heritage Greenway group announced plans to add handrails to the bridge in 2015.
The Carrollton Viaduct, located over the Gwynns Falls stream near Carroll Park in southwest Baltimore, Maryland, is the first stone masonry bridge built for railroad use in the United States for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, founded 1827, with construction beginning the following year and completed 1829. The bridge is named in honor of Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), of Maryland, known for being the last surviving signer of the Declaration of Independence, the only Roman Catholic in the Second Continental Congress (1775-1781), and wealthiest man in the Thirteen Colonies of the time of the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783).
In 1982 the viaduct was designated a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark by the American Society of Civil Engineers.
The bridge is currently one of the world's oldest railroad bridges still in use for rail traffic, carrying loads far greater than originally envisioned. It was named after Charles Carroll of Carrollton (1737-1832), the last living signer of the Declaration of Independence and a director of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, who laid the cornerstone on July 4, 1828. As he laid the first stone he said, "I consider this among the most important acts of my life, second only to my signing the Declaration of Independence." Builder Caspar Wever and designer James Lloyd completed the structure for the railroad in November 1829, at an officially listed cost of $58,106.73. The actual cost of the construction may have been as high as $100,000.
Andrew Jackson, the first President of the United States to ride on a railroad train, crossed the bridge on a trip between Ellicott's Mills and Baltimore on June 6, 1833. The Carrollton Viaduct has provided continual service to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and its modern corporate successor, CSX Transportation.
The viaduct was designated a National Historic Landmark on November 11, 1971 and was automatically listed on the National Register of Historic Places the same day.
Virginia and Truckee Railway Motor Car 22
The car body was constructed from steel using a monocoque design and given an aerodynamic shape. The body consisted of a curved roof, rounded rear end, and its distinctive knife-edge "wind-splitter" front end. Also a characteristic of the McKeen railcars was the frequent use of porthole windows; a total of 33 were used on Motor Car 22. The interior of Motor Car 22 was divided into the engine compartment inside the pointed front end of the motor car, the passenger compartment at the rear of the car, and the baggage compartment in the middle. When built, it had a seating capacity of 84 passengers.
The engine and trucks were removed from the McKeen car, and the body was sold in 1946 by the Virginia and Truckee. It was used as a diner in Carson City until it was sold in 1955 to a plumbing business for use as offices and storage. The remains of Motor Car 22 were eventually donated to the Nevada State Railroad Museum in 1995.
From 1995 to August 1997, the Nevada State Railroad Museum conducted a feasibility study of whether the McKeen could be restored to working order. The study found that most of the historic material needed could be salvaged or replicated, with the exception of the engine, transmission and acetylene lighting.
Motor Car 22 was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on September 6, 2005. The study also determined that there are four surviving McKeen motor cars, only two of them being models. None of them could "display the current state of high integrity and preservation" seen in Motor Car 22: one was converted into a passenger rail car in Anchorage, Alaska, one was cut in half and used as a shed in Price, Utah, while another was converted into a diesel-electric switcher.
The motor car was rededicated after the formal completion of the restoration on the centennial of its delivery to the Virginia and Truckee—May 9, 2010. The McKeen car was designated a National Historic Landmark on October 16, 2012. The car is operated annually by the Nevada State Railroad Museum for Nevada Day, Independence Day, Father's Day and National Train Day.
Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Martinsburg Shops is a historic industrial district in Martinsburg, West Virginia. It is significant both for its railroading architecture by Albert Fink and John Rudolph Niernsee and for its role in the Great Railroad Strike of 1877. It consists of three contributing buildings, one of which is the oldest covered roundhouse in the United States. The presence of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Company in Martinsburg dates back to the late 1840s, when the first engine and machine shops were erected for the expanding company.
The shops were designated a National Historic Landmark and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2003. They are now managed by a local authority as an event venue.
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) was founded on February 28, 1827. On May 21, 1842, the first steam locomotive arrived in Martinsburg and, later that same year, November 10, the first passenger train. The first roundhouse complex was constructed during 1848–1850.