Amtrak demolishes ten Civil War-era bridge piers over the Susquehanna River in Maryland to make way for a $2.7 billion project replacing the current bridge. Despite opposition, Amtrak cites the piers' impediment to boaters and lack of historical significance to the Underground Railroad.
Photo courtesy of Amtrak
The piers were left over in the Susquehanna from an older rail structure that opened shortly after the Civil War ended. The main structure of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Bridge was dismantled for scrap during World War II, though the piers remained in the water until being removed over the past several months.
A contractor for Amtrak removed the final ruins of an 1866 rail bridge from the Susquehanna River in northeastern Maryland in November, despite opposition bolstered by a startup rail company that argued the 10 remnant piers should have stayed due to their historical proximity to the Underground Railroad.
In a news release in mid-December, Amtrak hailed the removal of the final remnant piers as a critical early step in its $2.7 billion project to replace its current bridge, which was built in 1906, over the Susquehanna River between Maryland's Harford and Cecil counties.
Amtrak, the Maryland Area Regional Commuter (MARC) rail and Norfolk Southern Railway all used it to carry passenger and freight trains across the broad river.
As the longest moveable bridge on the Northeast Corridor (NEC), the bridge also was a critical link and will be replaced with new structures to maintain future rail services across the Susquehanna River, Amtrak noted.
Additionally, the project is proposed to provide future improvements to capacity, trip time and safety for commuter, freight and intercity passenger rail services on the NEC consistent with state and Amtrak plans. The proposed project also will improve the navigation channel for marine users.
The Maryland Department of Transportation Maryland Transit Authority (MDOT/MTA) received an award of $22 million through a cooperative agreement between the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) and MDOT for the structure's preliminary engineering, and National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA) phases of the rail bridge project. In August 2022, the project received a $40 million grant for final design through an additional cooperative agreement between FRA, MDOT/MTA and Amtrak.
Just over a year ago, in December 2023, Amtrak awarded three contracts for the Susquehanna River Rail Bridge Replacement, selecting Flatiron/Herzog Joint Ventures as the Construction Manager at Risk contractor along with two additional contracts to AECOM and Pittsburgh-based Fay Construction.
Pier Demolition Needed to Move New Construction Along
Opponents who wanted to see the piers preserved described their demolition as wasteful spending to destroy what they described as monuments to a pivotal time in U.S. history, according to a Baltimore Sun report on Dec. 24.
The piers were left over in the Susquehanna from an older rail structure that opened shortly after the Civil War ended. The main structure of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Bridge was dismantled for scrap during World War II, though the piers remained in the water until being removed over the past several months.
Amtrak had argued that the 1866 bridge piers needed to be removed to begin work on the "megaproject" of building a new bridge, which the federal passenger rail corporation said will enable high-speed rail at top speeds of 160 mph.
The railroad also claimed that the derelict piers were an "impediment to boaters," and there was little objection "to removing the piers throughout a yearslong planning and review process."
But as construction work began, starting with the demolition of the 19th century piers earlier this year, some vocal opposition, bolstered by a rail startup with ambitious plans to privatize Amtrak's busy Northeast Corridor, demanded a halt to their removal.
Some officials in Harford and Cecil counties joined AmeriStarRail's call for the piers to remain intact, echoing the company's cofounder, Scott Spencer, in arguing that the piers were historically significant and tied to the Underground Railroad.
Despite the rail bridge opening after Maryland abolished slavery and the end of the Civil War, Spencer argued that the piers bore "silent witness" during their construction to enslaved people on the final steps of their journey across the Mason-Dixon Line to freedom.
He also said its completion after the Civil War symbolized the unity of the North and the South and provided transportation to newly free Black Americans.
Spencer told the Sun on Dec. 23 that he was "saddened" by the destruction of the pilings, which he called the "largest group of surviving structures that were related to the Underground Railroad and the Civil War."
Importance of Bridge Piers to Black History Scrutinized
However, several experts on Maryland's Underground Railroad activity interviewed by the Baltimore newspaper said they could not see a solid connection between the bridge piers and the Underground Railroad, noting that enslaved people mostly crossed the Susquehanna by boat to find freedom and that construction of the bridge had little overlap with slavery in the state.
In a 2006 preservation review, the state found that while the pilings had a "unique history" related to 19th-century transportation, they lacked historic integrity as the bridge's entire superstructure had been removed.
Public input during Amtrak's review process also favored clearing the piers from the landscape.
For its part, the National Park Service has already designated a ferry landing site on the east side as part of its Network to Freedom program which preserves and promotes the history of resistance to enslavement through escape and flight.
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