In Ilchester, MD, a small town on the Patapsco river, you will find many traces of many things of historical interest. I was lured there by the ruins of a few old buildings sitting on the cliffs above the river that I found on some internet maps. However I was too late a they were long since demolished. In fact, going back to the internet, I found that it depended on which map service you used weather you saw the ruins still or not. (actually on bing maps you can see them on certain angles of bird’s eye but not on others)
The town holds more intrigue though. It is located at the end of the main area of Patapsco Valley State Park, in fact the main trail that extends through this park ends at a pedestrian bridge just south of this one. That pedestrian bridge is built on the foundations of the original Patterson Viaduct, which carried the B&O main line, our country’s first 11 miles of railroad, from Mt. Claire to Ellicott City. When that bridge washed out, the tracks were moved north about 100 yards, forcing them to travel through a tunnel and then crossing at the location of today’s picture. I have pictures of that pedestrian bridge but they are trapped on my film camera right now. We’ll get to it eventually.
2 responses so far ↓
1 bryanintowson // Jan 28, 2010 at 9:47 AM
That appears to be a modified Warren Truss.
2 Ilchester Part II « Maryland Daily Photo // Jun 18, 2010 at 12:06 AM
[...] The last time we visited Ilchester, I mentioned that there was a pedestrian bridge that currently spans the space where the Patterson viaduct used to be. (the Patterson viaduct was one of the bridges that carried the first railroad in America. It’s at the north end of what is today the main area of Patapsco Valley State Park) I couldn’t show you the very cool bridge then because the pictures were trapped on my film camera. Because of some mechanical issues with that camera, it took me a while to get this, but, finally, here it is. [...]
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