Eckhart Branch Railroad

The Eckhart Branch Railroad is a railroad that operated in the Cumberland, Maryland area in the 19th century.

The company was a subsidiary of the Maryland Mining Company of Eckhart Mines, Maryland. The railroad operated from 1846 to 1870, when it was absorbed into the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad.

The Maryland Mining Company (MMC) was incorporated in Maryland on March 12, 1829. The company built the railroad from Eckhart to Wills Creek, a length of 9 miles (14 km), along Braddock Run in 1846. It extended the line as the Potomac Wharf Branch between 1846 and 1850, totalling 14 miles (23 km). The railroad was acquired by the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad (C&P) in 1870.

Wills Creek was bridged at the west end of the Cumberland Narrows with a four arch brick structure that stood until removed for flood control in 1998. The railway included two tunnels, the one closest to Cumberland (lower tunnel) being 506 feet (154 m) long, and the upper tunnel being 335 feet (102 m) long. The tunnels were separated by 0.6-mile (0.97 km). The grade (slope) reached 3 percent in places. This branch was also the location of a large horseshoe curve, at Clarysville, with 180 degrees of a 30-degree curvature. The construction of Interstate 68 from the Vocke Road intersection to the bridges at Clarysville removed most of the evidence of the Eckhart Branch railroad in that area, including the tunnels.

The MMC rail line connected with the Mount Savage Railroad at the west end of the Narrows. After passing through the Narrows on the north side, it recrossed Wills Creek on a bridge (no longer present) just east of the present U.S. Route 40 bridge. Some of the tracks were still visible as of 1999 near some billboards, and a gas station. A picture of a classic wreck scene, circa 1860, shows that bridge collapsed into Wills Creek, with the engine C.E. Detmold hanging on. The original Potomac Wharf Branch bridge was a 203-foot (62 m) deck plate girder structure, with two support pillars in the creek. It was built in 1849, and rebuilt after the Detmold accident. It survived until a flood in 1936, and was not replaced.

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