Salisbury Viaduct, 1908 feet long and 101 feet high, dominates the valley as a key engineering achievement of the Western Maryland Railway's Connellsville Extension. Hundreds of spectators cheered when the first train crossed in 1912. Like all the bridges on this part of the Western Maryland, it was built to accommodate a second track that was never added. Engineers used cuts and fills to create a level grade, and the fill leading up to the viaduct was built in 1911 by running cars full of excavated dirt and rock out on a wooden trestle and dumping them until the trestle was buried. A concrete arch bridge carried a county road. During construction, disaster struck on July 10, 1911, when a traveling electric crane crashed to the ground while lifting a 14.5 ton girder, killing six men and seriously injuring one; a month later, another worker died after falling off the deck of the viaduct. Abandoned as a through-route in 1975, it was decked for trail use in 1998.

Photo: Bradley Owen

Photo: Bradley Owen

Meyersdale, Pennsylvania · USA