Industrial History: B&O's 1914 Magnolia Cutoff or Paw Paw Bends

Saturday, March 11, 2017

B&O's 1914 Magnolia Cutoff or Paw Paw Bends

Because the Potomac River defines the border between Maryland and West Virginia from Paw Paw, WV north past Little Orleans, MD, it is easy to see the path of the Potomac River when the map is zoomed out.

Satellite

This view makes the meandering of the river quite obvious. But I was taught that meandering rivers occur in flat lands where the fast currents on the outside of curves can easily eat away the river banks like we have seen seen in the Wabash and the Mackinaw Rivers. But these meanders have somehow developed in mountainous country. The original B&O route through this area followed the valley of the river. But that meant the route was long with sharp curves because of all of the lobes of the meanderings. So in 1914 the B&O built the Magnolia Cutoff in their Cumberland Subdivision. But they not only had to build bridges, Kessler and Magnolia, they had to dig tunnels. Note that the piers for those bridges are tall. This would shorten the tunnels and remove any threat of flooding.

I marked up the satellite image with red letters to show where to the two bridges are and with a blue line near the bottom left for the Carothers Tunnel, a yellow line for the Stuart Tunnel, and a purple line for the Randolph Tunnel. This is still an important route because the bridges are double tracked and around 2010 all three tunnels were notched to accommodate double-stack containers while maintaining two track capacity.

Satellite plus Paint

Stanley Short posted
Eastbound CSX hotshot Q296 pops out of Carothers Tunnel near Paw Paw, WV on April 22, 2001, led by C40-8 No. 7563. Photo by Stan Short.
Randall Hampton shared
James Banner: I was pretty sure they re-cut this tunnel for double stacts, and also the others thru that run.

Dc Sharp: Note the angle on the shot and the visual reference of the tunnel and the angle of the locomotive. Elevated into the curve for drainage among other things.

This is a great shot which is usual for Stanley Short's work!

Jan 2023 Update:

I missed the Graham Tunnel, which is between the two bridges. I updated the map (see below) to add it as the orange line. Ca 2010 they cut some rather big "ear" cuts in the tunnel for the double stacks. I can't but wonder what that does to the strength of the arch.

Peter Hayes posted
Amtrak's Capitol Limited rolls over the Potomac River and out of Maryland into West Virginia, emerging from Graham Tunnel on the B&O Magnolia Cutoff. This is a very interesting stretch of mainline, punching through the hills and bridging the Potomac twice within a mile! August 27th, 2022.
Craig Ring: Notice the cuts in the tunnel retrofitted for the double stacked cars. They needed to do this along the old main line and the tunnel in Baltimore City.
Stephen Greiner: This stretch of the Potomac River is known as the Paw Paw Bends. It's a great place to fish for smallmouth bass as well as watch trains.
Randall Hampton: The C&O Canal tunnel at Paw Paw is pretty cool too.
Stephen Greiner: Randall Hampton So's the Indigo Tunnel on the rail trail near Little Orleans though I heard it may be closed to protect an endangered species of bat. The timbers that support the tunnel are spectacular and were cut from trees of a size that just aren't around anymore.

Dennis DeBruler commented on Peter's post
I had found three tunnels on that 1914 cutoff, but I had missed this one. I updated my map to include it. K and M are the Kessler and Magnolia Bridges. The tunnels from north to south are Randolph (purple), Stuart (yellow), Graham (orange) and Carothers (blue).
https://bridgehunter.com/md/allegany/csx-tunnel/