The Culverts Under the Railroad

About 10 years ago Lynn and Richard White contacted the Germantown Historical Society to tell of a stone tunnel they had discovered in the woods. I met with the Whites and their little dog and we tramped into the forest on the east side of Kingsview Village. I remember approaching the imposing structure through the trees. The stones formed a doorway large enough for a person, stooping, to enter. It was set in the side of a hill about 30 feet high. I did not know what was on the other side of the hill, but a small square of light could be seen at the far end of the dark passageway. The smell of damp earth filled my nose and I immediately thought of snakes. I do not like snakes. But the dog went through first and we made lots of noise, so I was (fairly) confident that any slithery things had gone back into their holes.

Inside the tunnel the dark stones glistened with moisture and small rivulets streamed down the sides of the stones making the leaves underfoot dank and pungent. In the faint light I could see that the top of the tunnel was made of single large rectangular stones at least four feet long. Scraping away the leaves showed that the floor was also of stones, but smaller and more irregular. The stones on the sides were fitted together so closely that a snake would probably not be able to get through – at least not a large one. Even so, I was very happy to come out on the other side to a scene not much different than the one from which I had come, a wooded slope in a forest.

So, what was this tunnel and why was it there in the middle of the woods? The story begins with the building of the Metropolitan Branch of the B & O Railroad through Montgomery County in 1873. This railroad was considered one of the major engineering feats of its time with many structures, both large and small, praised for their excellence in design and implementation. Large structures such as the Waring Viaduct over Seneca Creek and the long viaduct over the Monocacy River got all of the attention. But the railroad crossed many streams, brooks and drainage ditches as well. What about the structures that let these small watercourses pass under the tracks?

The structures created for these small bodies of water were just as carefully engineered as the large bridges. The B & O had specific regulations for the “standard stone box culvert.” They were to be made of local stone and the openings ranged in size from 2 feet by 2 feet to 4 feet by 5 feet with some allowed to be wider depending on the availability of large stones. Most were about 20 feet long. The railroad even had diagrams for the construction of culverts. After all, they had to carry the same weight as the larger structures; some carried much more as they were built under a dirt fill as high as 15 to 20 feet.

Construction of the Metropolitan Branch began in the middle and was allotted to several different contractors by bid. The contractor for the section of the railroad through Germantown was James Boyd, for whom the town of Boyds is named. There were many culverts along this area, but few of the originals remain since the railroad line is still in use today and was converted to a double track in the early 20th century. Most of the line and bed and all of the important structures of the original track have been replaced or renovated.

We are lucky here in Germantown because one mile of curving railroad bed with three stone culverts from the original construction were left intact. This curving section, lying just north of the present Md. Route 118, was abandoned early in the railroad’s history when the rest of this section of the railroad line was straightened. These three culverts were made of hand-hewn local blackrock stone and were about 20 feet long. The openings were 3 feet by 5 feet and the huge slabs of square-cut stone are fitted together without mortar. They are so well made because the contractor who supervised the construction was a master stonemason, trained in Scotland.

James Alexander Boyd was born in Scotland in 1823. He immigrated to the United States, where there was a lot of building going on, to ply his trade. He soon found work with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, which was building a line from Baltimore to Philadelphia. From masonry work, the talented young man soon rose to become construction supervisor. Through his work he made contact with the famous civil engineer Benjamin Latrobe, builder of the Thomas Viaduct for the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) main line — the first railroad in America. These two soon became lifelong friends. Latrobe found work for James Boyd with the B & O Railroad, where they were finishing the main line in western Virginia. There, James met and married Miss Sarah Rinehart. When the Civil War broke out the young couple traveled to South America where James found work building railroads in Brazil, the war having curtailed railroad construction in the U.S.

After the Civil War the B & O Railroad purchased the contract of the bankrupt Metropolitan Railroad Company and began construction of the Metropolitan Branch using mainly the same surveys done by the previous company. James Boyd returned from Brazil and bid on the contract for the first section of the railroad to be built — the center section from Germantown to Barnesville. Construction began in 1866.

Boyd set up a work camp about halfway between the two towns and hired as his work force Irish immigrants from Baltimore and local ex-slaves. Ex-slaves in the area who may have worked on the railroad included the surnames of Prather, Dyson, Clagett, Watkins, Williams, Johnson, Magruder and Duffin. It was literally an uphill battle for these workers, Barnesville being the highest point on the railroad line. The railroad bed had to be as level as possible, with only a grade of 50 feet per mile allowed. Sometimes the bed was built up about 15 feet above the ground level, sometimes about 15 feet below. Bridges and culverts had to be constructed for existing waterways to flow over or under the railroad bed. All of this work was done with picks and shovels. Horses and wagons were used to haul the dirt and stone.

When the railroad was completed, James Boyd purchased the 130 acres around the work camp where he had lived for six years. This was barren land, not capable of growing a crop because it had been ruined by the cultivation of tobacco for many years. But Boyd brought the land back to life by applying South American guano, purchased and transported from that country through the friends he had made while working there. Other farmers in the area, seeing his good results, followed suit and then shared in his prosperity. Boyd expanded his holding to 1,200 acres and the railroad town that grew up next to his farm was named for him — Boyds.

The Germantown culverts were placed on the Montgomery County Landmarks Atlas by the Germantown Historical Society in 2001. One of the culverts has since been dismantled and the stones donated to Black Hill Park. Another has been refaced with mortared sandstone blocks, but the third culvert remains mostly intact in a protected forest area between two townhouse developments.