Maryland Outdoors
#1
01-08-2011, 09:09 AM
Maryland Outdoors
I enjoy biking , hiking and have done quite a bit over the years. I thought it would be cool to start a thread about trails and such in the MD area. Kinda what we have to offer to the rest of them. Feel free to add!
Here is my first video. I recently started riding road bikes and this was my longest ride. Western Maryland Rail Trail from Big Pool up through Hancock to Pearre and back. I rode a little extra so I could break 50 miles.
YouTube - Western Maryland Rail Trail
Duncan
Here is my first video. I recently started riding road bikes and this was my longest ride. Western Maryland Rail Trail from Big Pool up through Hancock to Pearre and back. I rode a little extra so I could break 50 miles.
YouTube - Western Maryland Rail Trail
Duncan
#4
01-10-2011, 08:29 AM
Pike to Bike
This one is actually in Breezewood PA. (Close enough to MD though.)
History
Photo taken in 1885r
Back in the late 1800's railroads had the market on transportation. New railroads were being constructed to out compete competitors. Connecting Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and Ohio was an early goal. William Vanderbilt spent $10 million creating 120 miles of road bed, including bridges, culverts, and 9 tunnels. One of his major backers, J.P. Morgan, sold the right-of-way to a competing railroad, thus pulling the plug in 1885.
Photo by Jean Swartz, courtesy Mitchell E. Dakelman / Neal A. Schorr
Andrew Carnegie center
How could so much money and labor go into cutting holes through the mountains, laying a road bed, only to be walked away from? Twice!
Photo taken in 1885r
Back in the late 1800's railroads had the market on transportation. New railroads were being constructed to out compete competitors. Connecting Philadelphia to Pittsburgh and Ohio was an early goal. William Vanderbilt spent $10 million creating 120 miles of road bed, including bridges, culverts, and 9 tunnels. One of his major backers, J.P. Morgan, sold the right-of-way to a competing railroad, thus pulling the plug in 1885.
Thousands of workers labored in the tunnels for $1.25/ 10 hour day, 26 of them lost their lives and the unfinished project became know as Vanderbilt's Folly. (More history)
The South Penn Railroad was abandoned. It lay furrow until it was resurrected to become "America's First Super Highway", the Pennsylvania Turnpike, our nation's first limited access highway.
The South Penn Railroad was abandoned. It lay furrow until it was resurrected to become "America's First Super Highway", the Pennsylvania Turnpike, our nation's first limited access highway.
Photo by Jean Swartz, courtesy Mitchell E. Dakelman / Neal A. Schorr
Opening on October 1, 1940, with hundreds of motorist waiting for hours to be the first to ride "The Road of the Future", the Turnpike was an immediate success. Easy and fast. Nothing to slow you down, (not even a set speed limit at first, and then 70MPH!)
Nothing except the tunnels.
From the start they were bottle necks. The 4 lane traffic funneled to 2 opposing lanes. This didn't work. Trucks had little clearance. Traffic backed up for miles. The Sidling Hill Tunnel had a hard time clearing the fumes.
It was apparent early that something needed to be done. 4 of the tunnels were "twinned" and retrofitted with new lights and tile walls but for 3 it was decided to bypass over the mountain rather than dig. (Fog and ice are a problem now, but at least everything is 4 lane).
This is the story of two of them.
In 1968 the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (TPC) bypassed the Ray's and Sidling Hill tunnels and 11 miles of pike.
Abandoned again.
Nothing except the tunnels.
From the start they were bottle necks. The 4 lane traffic funneled to 2 opposing lanes. This didn't work. Trucks had little clearance. Traffic backed up for miles. The Sidling Hill Tunnel had a hard time clearing the fumes.
It was apparent early that something needed to be done. 4 of the tunnels were "twinned" and retrofitted with new lights and tile walls but for 3 it was decided to bypass over the mountain rather than dig. (Fog and ice are a problem now, but at least everything is 4 lane).
This is the story of two of them.
In 1968 the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (TPC) bypassed the Ray's and Sidling Hill tunnels and 11 miles of pike.
Abandoned again.
I took my girls there a couple of years ago. Rays hill tunnel is 3/4 of a mile long and Sidling Hill is just about a mile and a half. I bought them LED headlamps so they could see in the tunnel.
Andrew Carnegie center
My girls standing where greatness once stood.....
(middle pic) Kids, bikes, dogs and 8 and a half miles of abandoned road. What more can a man ask for!
(last pic) Hill climb. It's an old railroad bed so the grade is 3% or less. They were only 5 and 7 when we did this.
#7
01-10-2011, 09:19 AM
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#10
01-10-2011, 09:32 AM
An old lamp post at the entrance of the tunnel. It saddens me to look at this. A silent reminder of America's golden era. I love history, especially American history. I think that the period of the mid 1800's to the 1950's was this countries finest. We built things to last back then, and we will never reach that point again in my opinion.
#12
01-10-2011, 03:54 PM
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#14
01-10-2011, 04:11 PM
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