Railroad Routes in the Alleghenies, Part III

The Proposed Routes West From Cumberland

Route 1-The Sand Patch Grade-Formed by Wills Creek
Wills Creek drains an area of 247 square miles with an average mean flow of 352 cu. ft/sec. Starting at the Eastern Continental Divide near Wittenberg, PA at an elevation of 2480 feet, Wills Creek cuts through Big Savage, Little Allegheny (Allegheny Front) and Wills Mountain (the Narrows). This route runs northeasterly from Cumberland on a gentle slope to Hyndman where the grade increases as the creek turns northwesterly and slices through the two Allegheny ridges. Near Mance, Wills Creeks takes a contrary turn to the southeast so the Sand Patch railroad grade leaves the creek to climb up to the Eastern Continental Divide at Sand Patch, making use of a scenic horseshoe curve in the process. This section sets the ruling grade for the route. Sand Patch Grade would have been ideal for the early B&O because it headed in the right direction, it accessed the favorable Youghiogheny River/Casselman River/ Flaugherty Creek corridor for a very reasonable eastward climb(facing the tonnage), and, for the most part, it did not require extensive cut and fill work. As later built, only one tunnel was required to cut under the summit at Sand Patch (another tunnel was subsequent built at Falls Cut to remedy rock falls and to double track). The route had two drawbacks-the first precluded it from even being initally surveyed, it went directly into Pennsylvania where the B&O was not chartered. The second drawback still exists, it is in the floodplain of Wills Creek. Several violent floods have shut this grade down for short periods and required extensive repair work.

Even though it was not initally surveyed, the route was well known from prior surveys for the C&O Canal. McNeill, one of the Army engineers assigned to the B&O in 1825 had surveyed this route in 1824. Another Army survey was performed in 1829 with the conclusion that a four mile tunnel was needed under the summit for a canal. The report recommended since with the pick and shovel technology of the day this tunnel would take 13 years to build that the Army should get started right away. President Jackson declined to get the military involved. When this route was eventually built in the 1860's, the B&O had lost the trunk line race with the PRR and the route suffered from less favorable connections in the Pittsburgh area. Always financially pressed, the B&O planned but never completed a route from Connellsville to Wheeling on this corridor. In recent years, CSXT has made this route the major midwest corridor for the same reasons it should have been B&O's first route over the Alleghenies. As to the 1829 report that a four mile long tunnel would be ideal, a similar proposal was studied by the B&O in the early 1900's but scuttled for lack of funds.

Route 7-The Seventeen Mile Grade-Formed by Savage River and Crabtree Creek
Savage River drains an area of 117 square miles with an average mean flow of 210 cu. ft/sec (about 60% the horsepower of Wills Creek). Crabtree Creek starts at the Eastern Continental Divide near Backbone(Big Savage) Mountain and joins Savage River at Bond. Savage River cuts through Big Savage near Bloomington where it joins the North Branch of the Potomac at 989 feet elevation. The North Branch cuts through Allegheny Front (Dans Mountain)and Haystack Mountain (Wills Mountain). This route runs southwesterly from Cumberland on a gentle grade to Piedmont where the route had to start climbing the flank of the mountain to maintain a possible, but still backbreaking, grade. At Bond, the watershed of Crabtree Creek turns westerly and continues up to the Altamont (Eastern Continental Divide, elevation 2628 feet). Much of the Seventeen Mile Grade is cut into the mountainside until Swanton.

This so called West End route was the only choice for the B&O in 1850's after losing the battle with Pennsylvania to enter that state. Using the Seventeen Mile Grade and a routing further to the west that was never considered by the B&O founders, the State of Pennsylvania could be avoided. What is interesting about this route is statement by B&O engineers that an "equally good" alternative to Wills Creek was to be had in the West End route. A cursory inspection of the two routes leads to the conclusion that this statement was for the benefit of investors in England and others far away enough to never know the difference. This same statement is still found in contempory accounts of the situation in 1850, a lasting tribute to the public relations work of Latrobe and other B&O insiders. More detrimental to this route than the Seventeen Mile Grade was the Newburg and Cranberry Grades to the west that faced eastbound traffic. In recent years, CSXT has made this route a coal haulage corridor with one slow freight for the same reasons it should have been avoided in the first place. One would believe that even this role would have ceased if a detour had been built around Uniontown Pennsylvania on the FM&P route.

The Army engineeers working on the C&O Canal survey scouted the route across the Glades to a spot later named Terra Alta using Snowy Creek in 1824. When the same engineers took up work on a B&O grade they crossed the summit and continued down Spruce Creek/Saltlick Creek to Cheat River, the famous Cranberry Grade. An interesting point on Knight's map is that apparently B&O's early route did not go through the spot that would become Oakland, MD. Rather, their alignment appeared to leave the Little Yough around the later Mtn. Lake Park MD, travel up Pleasant Valley to around Gortner and then follow Cherry Creek to the Yough at Underwood where the river cuts through Charcoal Hill (same ridgeline as Meadow Mountain)to the later lumbermill town of Crellin (home of the Preston RR). From this point the grade used Snowy Creek to Terra Alta WV. None of these town existed before the coming of the railroad. After reaching the Cheat (site of Rowlesburg), Knight's route followed the Cheat and the Monongahala River to around Brownsville, PA where a cross country route to Wheeling was mapped. From Rowlesburg down, the Cheat cuts a serious canyon through Briery Mountain (Laurel Hill) and Chestnut Ridge and, like the Deep Creek/Yough routes, no continuous railroad ever took this route. The M&K RR went as far as Albright and then left the Cheat River for a cross country route to Morgantown. When the B&O was shut out of Pennsylvania, even this mountainous route was out the question.

Route 2-Jennings Run
As shown on Knight's 1835 map, this Jennings Run route would have been impossibly steep for a main line railroad. The route would have essentially been the Cumberland & Pennsylvania Railroad line from Cumberland through Mt. Savage Junction to Barrelville. From Barrelville, elevation 1000 ft., the Knight map shows the B&O route leaving the later C&P route to climb to a crossing of Big Savage, at the best elevation of 2400 ft if a tunnel was used. Reviewing a topo map leads to an estimated 3% to 4% grade for this section, North Branch of Jennings Run is not a sufficient watershed for a climb over the mountains. Check this route out by driving from Barrelville to the top of Big Savage on PA Route 160 to form your own opinion. This route would seem to result from Knight's experience with the National Road, a road that suffers extreme grades for the sake of a straight line. Even though Knight's Jenning Run alignment was impossible, another Jennings Run route is perhaps the "Best Route" (see below)

Route 3-Braddock Run
Another Sand Patch Route, the Braddock Run route would have been possible for the early B&O, although not as favorable as the Wills Creek route. The Braddock Run route was later partially built by the Georges Creek and Cumberland Railroad as far as Georges Creek Valley, where the GC&C RR competed with the Cumberland & Pennsylvania for Big Vein coal. The GC&C route was abandoned by the Western Maryland Railway (owner since the early 1900s) in 1927 from Georges Creek Junction (in the Narrows)to the west in favor of trackage rights on the Cumberland & Pennsylvania route (also owned by the Western Maryland in later years). An indictment against this route is the fact that the WM abandoned the alignment rather than using it for its newly built Connellsville Sub. Even with that said, a Braddock Run route probably would have been better built by the early B&O compared to what a coal company captive shortline built in the 1880's. One improvement would have been to start this grade at Pinto, using the Patterson Creek Cutoff alignment later built by the B&O. Indeed, B&O debated in the 1840's (by which time any Sand Patch route was questionable) using the Patterson Creek Cutoff as the West End mainline with only a branch to Cumberland. A grade starting at Pinto was part of a never built Frostburg Extention of a B&O chartered alternative to both Sand Patch and West End Routes. Supposedly, B&O had to give permission to WM to use this general alignment for the Connellsville Sub (again see "Best Route" below). Knight's map shows this route leaving Georges Creek Valley to climb the flank of Big Savage, then crossing Big Savage through Wolf Gap and Cranberry Swamp (source of Savage River), and finally down to Flaugherty Creek at Finzel for the gentle grade to Sand Patch.

This route has particular interest for several reasons. First it is generally Braddock's route to move the British Army from Cumberland to Big Savage in 1755. This so-called Nemacolin Path/Braddock Road was the precursor of the National Road, and gradewise superior to the Army-engineered federal road. Besides the GC&C Railroad, a logging railroad from Midlothian and a tramroad from Zihlman used parts of this route.The summit can be visted in the Finzel area. Driving by the gap and swamp (near the ballfield and park close to Finzel), one wonders if it would have been possible to tunnel under Cranberry Swamp at a lower elevation and come out in the Piney Run watershed on the other side of present day Rt 546. From this point a Piney Run route could be used through a Meadow Mountain gap to the Casselman at Boynton (a logging railroad used this gap in later years). A tunnel under a swamp would be interesting.

Route 4-Savage River
The last Sand Patch Route, the Savage River route suffers from both steep grades and long distances to get to the same point at Sand Patch as the others. The steep grades would have been from Piedmont to Bond as Savage River cut through Big Savage Mountain. The section from Merrills Bridge to Old Frostburg Road would have also had significant grades but more detrimentally would have had to been carved in the mountain side with numerous cuts and fills as Savage River snakes up a very narrow gorge on the side of Four Mile Ridge.

Route 5 & 6-The Deep Creek Routes
Routes 5 & 6 used Deep Creek to the Youghiogheny River or better yet, Bear Creek to the Yough at Friendsville,and then down the river to where it would have intersected with the Sand Patch Routes at Confluence. In general, the Deep Creek/Youghiogheny routes would not have been as favorable as the Flaugherty Creek/Casselman River routes because of much steeper eastward climbs facing tonnage. Bear Creek alignment would have been a better bet than a route using Deep Creek directly to the Yough (this area had so much vertical drop that Deep Creek Lake was built to take advantage of the hydroelectric potential). The Bear Creek route would have taken the B&O though McHenry (then called John McHenry's place on Marsh Run), one of the few place names on the 1835 map in Garrett County. The route would have then climbed over a low summit to the head of Bear Creek near today's Garrett Community College. This location was once a farmstead of famed pioneer hunter, Meshach Browning. If Browning was excited about a potential railroad going by his old place, he makes no mention of it in his book. Since he mentioned meeting the surveyors, it is a safe bet that he and other settlers in that area were not counting on the railroad coming by. The canal, by the way, had claimed the entire Deep Creek watershed for a lake to feed the 150 or so locks that would be needed on the westbound climb. Another location on the 1835 map is Selbysport, on the Yough below Friendsville. This town was founded on the belief that the canal would pass by to carry products of planned industry. No canal came by and the Confluence and Oakland RR was too late to help, today the remains of Selbysport are submerged under the Youghiogheny Reservoir

Even though the Confluence and Oakland Railroad ( which only made it as far north as Kendall ) and various logging railroads used much of these routes, a complete connection was never made because of the steep and deep Yough and Bear Creek canyons. Today, the Yough river is rated class 4 & 5 whitewater for much of the distance from Swallow Falls to Friendsville.

An interesting feature of the Knight routes is the much discussed climb from Swanton to Green Glade using a tunnel at the Pine Hill summit. It was believed that the railroad could do it because the C&O canal had mapped it. Suffice to say that it would have been torturous for a railroad and impossible for a canal. Of course, the canal was a complete fantasy west of Bloomington in any case. If a Deep Creek railroute would have been built, the line probably would have continued through Swanton up to Altamont like the Seventeen Mile Grade. At Altamont, a tunnel could have cut under Hickory Ridge and the line continue down the Deep Creek Valley. In any event, Garrett County today would be a different place if a mainline railroad would have been built down Deep Creek.