Profiles

Pioneer in Constructing Railway Bridges

American civil engineer Benjamin Henry Latrobe II was a pioneer in the construction of railway bridges. He served as chief engineer for the B&O Railroad. He is known for his innovations in bridge and curved masonry viaduct designs. Latrobe was instrumental in the design and building of the B&O between Cumberland, Maryland, and the Ohio River through West Virginia.

By the mid-1800s, the B&O railway route extended from Baltimore, Maryland, to St. Louis, Missouri. The route included other principal lines in the eastern, middle and western states.

Latrobe was the chief engineer of the Northwestern Virginia Railroad that was funded by B&O. The new railway, completed in 1857, linked Parkersburg with the B&O network at Grafton. As if building a direct route through the Alleghenies is not impressive enought, Latrobe’s crew of 5,000 men built 200 miles of railroad, including 113 bridges and 11 tunnels in less than four years. The route provided a shorter path to the west than the route through Wheeling. The route would become part of the B&O railway’s main line.

Building this route meant constructing th Parkersburg Bridge, also known as the Sixth Street Railroad Bridge, which was completed in 1871. Nearly a mile long, it was the largest bridge in America at that time. The bridge, design by Jacob Linville, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.