Community Corner
Germantown Then and Now: Little Seneca Train Trestle
There used to be a bridge that spanned Little Seneca Creek, which was used by the B & O Railroad.
Intrepid hikers in the south end of Black Hill Regional Park below the dam may come across, looming up out of the undergrowth like soldiers from an army of giants, 12-foot tall stone pillars marching in pairs up the hill. Who built these and why are they sitting today in the middle of the woods?
They were constructed as abutments to support a railroad trestle over the Little Seneca Creek. There is a matching set on the other side of the gorge, on private property. The lower piers were made to withstand the floods of the creek and have wedge-shaped ends on the upstream sides. This feature is common in bridge-over-water construction and is called “cut-water” because that is what they are quite literally supposed to do, keeping debris flowing down the river from piling up at the piers.
The Metropolitan Branch of the B & O Railroad was completed in 1873. It ran just one mile to the east of “Old Germantown” at the corner of Germantown Road (now Liberty Mill Road) and Clopper Road, so the commercial center of the town transferred to the railroad and Germantown became a railroad town instead of an agricultural crossroads.
The railroad crossed both Little Seneca and Great Seneca Creeks (the current boundaries of Germantown) on high wooden trestles. In 1896, the rickety trestle over Little Seneca was replaced by an “iron bridge.” What we have left today are the abutments that held the trestle that supported the track of that bridge or viaduct.
Chiseled on the sides of the abutments are the dates “6-17-96” and “10-
13-96.” Between these dates stonemasons labored to erect these huge bases for a 480-foot long bridge span that would be 105 feet above the water. This is remarkable in itself, but in addition this bridge had a sharp 4° curve, unique and difficult in any bridge construction.
The viaduct was designed by John E. Greiner (1859-1942), the chief engineer for the B & O Railroad at that time. According to the Montgomery County Historic Preservation Commission, “Greiner was an accomplished civil engineer of some note – after he left the B & O in 1908, the consulting firm he founded was involved in a number of important projects, including the Pennsylvania Turnpike, the Susquehanna River bridge at Havre de Grace, and many others.”
In 1928, when this section of railroad was straightened and double-tracked, this “iron bridge” was replaced by earthen fill and a concrete culvert further downstream.
