Turnbridge at the Switch

DENTON - Most people who boat on the Choptank near Denton know it as the big hunk of mangled wood and rusted metal that you’re required to pass through when traveling between the county yacht club and the 404 overpass. Others, particularly train fanatics or local history buffs, know it as the old railroad bridge, or “turnbridge.”

The structure has stood unused, other than perhaps as a risk-taker’s fishing pier, for decades. Frozen in time. But finally, things are chugging along within the belly of the state regarding what  to do with the old bridge. I figured we might revisit its past this month, and start talking about its future in the ones to come. This is part one of the series Turnbridge at the Switch.

I spoke with Harry Romano, a self-described railroad enthusiast who has spent his career and much of his childhood around railroads. Romano spent decades as a planner with the Maryland Department of Transportation, first supporting transit operations and later moving into freight rail planning. He is now an Associate Research Scientist with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Originally from Queen Anne’s County, Romano has both professional and personal ties to the rail history of the region. Additional context came from Thomas MacKay, the outgoing Rail Program and Policy Manager for Maryland DOT’s Office of Rail and Intermodal Freight.

Despite its many nicknames, for our purposes, we’re going to just call it the Choptank River Railroad Bridge. It was originally constructed in 1896 as part of the Queen Anne’s Railroad, a line incorporated in 1894 by Centreville businessmen. Construction began in 1895, and by the summer of 1896, trains were running between Queenstown and Denton. Over the next several years, the line expanded eastward into Delaware, eventually reaching Lewes, Delaware by 1898. In the early 1900s, the railroad was extended west to Love Point on Kent Island and north to Centreville, creating a continuous route from the Chesapeake Bay to the Delaware beaches – insert joke about Denton being a generational bypass for beachgoers here.

This westward expansion was not accidental. During the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, railroads were often built to connect inland towns to navigable waterways. Romano emphasized that early rail development in the 19th and early 20th centuries was still deeply tied to maritime transportation, something modern audiences rarely consider. Love Point, for example, served as a ferry terminal where passengers from the Western Shore could cross the Chesapeake and board trains headed east (keep in mind, there are no cars, let alone a Bay Bridge). In the summer months, the Queen Anne’s Railroad primarily carried vacationers bound for the Delaware coast, with a connection at Lewes to a Pennsylvania Railroad branch that continued on toward Rehoboth.

The bridge in Denton was a critical piece of this network. Designed as a turnstile bridge, it was opened manually by a “bridge tender” using a hand crank. The center span rotated ninety degrees, allowing vessels to pass on either side before being turned back into position for trains. Romano explained that while records are a tad unclear, historic documentation indicates the bridge was either significantly renovated or fully replaced sometime in the early twentieth century. Hopefully by then it was a bit easier to open.

Beyond passengers, the railroad played a vital role in the Eastern Shore’s agricultural economy. Shorter segments of the line were used to move goods between towns. Coal, lumber, and farm outputs, as well as products from the many canneries that once dotted Caroline County, were shipped via railroad. Romano noted that customers like Nuttle Lumber relied heavily on rail service during the region’s peak era of truck farming, when tomatoes, peaches, strawberries, and other produce were shipped to northern cities in large quantities.

Despite its ambition, the Queen Anne’s Railroad struggled almost from the start. Severe ice storms in 1903 and 1904 damaged infrastructure, and the Great Baltimore Fire of 1904 emptied the pockets of their usual passengers. That same year, the Queen Anne’s Railroad company went bankrupt. It was conveyed to the Maryland, Delaware, and Virginia Railroad (MD&V), a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad, which saw value in the line as part of a larger effort to establish a Baltimore to Cape May route.

Even under new ownership, Romano described it as “never really a strong line.” As automobiles gained popularity in the 1910s and 1920s, rail travel declined sharply. By the early 1920s, MD&V, too, collapsed.

At that point the state intervened, but only to save the segment from Love Point to Queen Anne’s, and most of the track east of Denton was slated for abandonment. Still, freight and limited passenger service between Denton and Lewes continued under successive operators into the early 1930s, after which freight-only service remained.

Historic records suggest that during this period the original Choptank River bridge required major repairs or replacement, temporarily disrupting service. Once the bridge was back in operation, most of the eastern tracks were abandoned, leaving a hyperlocal stretch between Queen Anne’s County and Denton. Passenger trains stopped using the bridge in 1931, and by the mid-1900s, trucking, highways, and later the Bay Bridge dramatically altered transportation patterns on the Shore. Service was slower and slower all the time. Fast forward to the 1970s, and nothing much had changed. The line had next to no economic value, and if that wasn’t pathetic enough, rumor has it that the bridge was set ablaze once or twice.

Nationwide, multiple railroad companies were grinding to a halt, prompting federal intervention and the creation of Conrail. While some lines were deemed viable, most track on the Delmarva Peninsula was classified as too low-density to envelope in Conrail. Maryland and Delaware stepped in to assume responsibility for what the federal government deemed unwanted – including the eight-mile spur between Denton and Queen Anne’s that contains the Choptank River Railroad Bridge.

“By the time the state bought it, it was pretty much done,” Romano told me. Ownership eventually transferred through the State Railroad Administration and into the Maryland Transit Administration, which still owns the right-of-way today.

While under stewardship of the state, the railroad bridge and corridor were railbanked. Railbanking is a legal term which basically means the rail line is dormant but protected, and the state retains the right to re-open them if need be. You might be wondering why the state would want the responsibility of these corridors, especially considering the tracks themselves are now centuries old and pretty much unsalvageable (don’t worry, I thought the same thing). But Romano stressed that once railroad routes like this disappear, they are nearly impossible to reclaim. Railbanking keeps future options open for the use of these paths that connect cities, towns, and coastlines.

Believe it or not, this is the short version of a long, layered history. In part two, we will move forward into the preservation era; examining what has been done to stabilize the bridge, how decisions are being made for its future, and what challenges remain.