Tapeworm Railroad

Not to be confused with Gettysburg Railroad.

File:1839 Gettysburg RR Map planned.jpg

1839 map of planned route (Big Spring, Maryland to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania)

File:1839 Tapeworm Railroad and Nichols Gap Road at Toms Creek Gap.png

The surveyed route from Maria Furnace westward along the Nichol's Gap Road (top image) was to loop west of the location where the highway crossed Toms Creek in a topographic gap (Fairfield Gap) between ~900 ft (270 m) levels (bottom). The 1839 commonwealth survey map shows that the 3 crossing points between the route, the highway, and the creek (white pixels at top, with misaligned hachures to the northeast) were at 3 different points:

, ,

At the easternmost of the 3 points, the railroad company built a single-arch stone bridge for the highway over the creek. (The highway bridge is often misidentified as being for the railway and, with the misnomer "viaduct" inaccurately indicating multiple arches.) In addition to the never-built Tapeworm Railroad trestle to cross the gap west of the roadway bridge, a Tapeworm Railroad tunnel was planned nearby (top, outlined) through a spur of Jacks Mountain. In 1888-1889, the "Western Extension" was built by the Baltimore and Harrisburg Railway (bottom) east of the gap, crossing Toms Creek at a lower elevation than the original Tapeworm Railroad route.

The Tapeworm Railroad (Gettysburg Rail Road) was a railway line planned by Congressman Thaddeus Stevens and nicknamed by opponents ridiculing a lengthy serpentine section around the Green Ridge of South Mountain after an orator compared the path to a tapeworm depiction on a product's packaging. Switchbacks were planned on the west slope at Hughs Forge along the E Br Antietam Creek ("Cold Spring Cr" in 1839) and on the east slope at Stevens' 1822 Maria Furnace along Toms Creek (Monocacy River), with 3 east slope tunnels through spurs of Jacks Mountain.

In 1836, Herman Haupt had surveyed the "road from Gettysburg across South Mountain to the Potomac" and in 1838, the rail "bed" was "graded for a number of miles, never got further than Monterey", and included the following (west-to-east):

• single-arch roadway bridge over Toms Creek west of Iron Springs, Pennsylvania
• multi-arch bridge
• viaduct at Virginia Mills
• deep cut near Marsh Creek
• elevated railbed on banks of Willoughby Run
• McPherson Ridge railway cut, site of the 1863 Battle of Gettysburg military engagements on McPherson Ridge
• Seminary Ridge railway cut

After Thaddeus Stevens lost his position on the Canal Commission, the commonwealth ended the railroad's financing and work was suspended in 1838, and an 1839 survey was ordered of the planned line. As late as 1885, "Tapeworm" was used for the Hanover Junction, Hanover and Gettysburg Railroad line west of the preceding 1858 Gettysburg Railroad line.

External links

External image
modern map of the Tapeworm route