October Event, "It's All Uphill to Oakland"

When the B&O’s westward expansion project reached Piedmont in 1851, they encountered the major task of making the 17 mile climb over Backbone Mountain. This was the topic of Pat Stakem’s presentation “It’s all uphill to Oakland; Building the B&O’s 17-mile Grade” at Garrett College’s auditorium this past Saturday, October 10^th. The presentation was part of One Vision Many Voices’ series of events celebrating Mountain Maryland’s history and discussion of its future. Mr. Stakem discussed the professionals involved, the challenges of the project, and how B&O overcame these challenges.

The chief engineer for the project was Benjamin Latrobe, II who designed the Bloomington Viaduct at the bottom of the 17-mile grade.  E.F. Baldwin was in charge of architectural tasks for the project. His work can be seen in many places around Maryland such as the B&O Railroad Museum roundhouse, and the warehouse at Camden Yards. Finally, there was Locomotive designer Ross Winans, whose “Camel” engines were capable of hauling 144 tons along the 17-mile grade.

This project could most likely not have been completed without these three, but we cannot leave out the most important people involved. The 17-mile grade project involved around 5,000 laborers who were mostly Irish. They were paid 87 and half cents per day and faced innumerable dangers during the construction. These dangers included the weather and disease, including a Cholera outbreak in the fall of 1851. To this day, there is no conclusive record to how many laborers died while building the line. There is currently a monument to the unnamed workers in Canal Place featuring a Celtic cross.

 Attendee Howard Emerick, former CSX employee reviews the Topographical Map at Garrett College

One of the largest challenges wasn’t so much going up the mountain, no easy task albeit, but the cars went up empty. Coming down the mountain, these cars were filled with coal going down a mountain with steel wheels on steel rail. The engine had no breaking mechanism of its own, so each car had a manual lever break system to slow it down. This required the workers to run back and forth on top of the cars adjusting these breaks constantly to maintain control. One of the ways the B&O construction eased the grade was to use tunneling through certain problem areas.

After Mr. Stakem’s presentation, there was a question and answer section. When asked what role the rail roads may play in the future of Mountain Maryland, Mr. Stakem was in favor of focusing on the rail system. “Rail is the most efficient way to move large amounts of large distances.” Stakem said. Including that many new locomotives are running on Biodiesel fuels, and some are using Hybrid Diesel batteries.

A slide from Pat Stakem's presentation that shows the Grade after Piedmont

For more information on upcoming events of the One Vision Many Voices project, please visit www.onevisionmanyvoices.com