Turnbridge at the Switch

DENTON – We began this series last month with a peek into the past of the Choptank River railroad bridge, which is appropriately nicknamed “Turnbridge” due to the fact that it is a turnstile bridge. We will pick up now essentially where we left off: the state of Maryland’s acquisition of the bridge as part of a larger effort to preserve these rail lines, and what has been done since then to give this historical structure a viable future.

For Part 2 of Turnbridge at the Switch, I spoke with Thomas Mackay, who up until a few weeks ago was the Rail Program and Policy Manager for Maryland Department of Transportation’s Office of Rail and Intermodal Freight. A Frostburg graduate, Mackay has held several other roles in both freight and passenger rail. He previously worked for the Class I railroad company CXS, “running great big freight trains”, as he put it. He later oversaw the MARC passenger train service from both the contractor and state side of things. Since leaving his most recent role at MDOT, he has launched his own freelance railroad consulting business, Last Mile Rail Strategies, LLC. Through Last Mile, he hopes to help local entities that are interested in turning old railroad corridors, like that of Denton, into something more. Oh, and he’s also a “semi-professional” bike racer.

As a quick refresher: the rail line which includes the bridge was used from the late 1890s to the late 1970s. After transferring between several private business ventures in its lifetime, it was purchased by the former State Rail Administration, which later merged with the Maryland Transit Administration. So, like anything else, if you’re looking for someone to blame for the fact that the bridge has sat almost untouched for almost 50 years, you can look to the state of Maryland.

Mackay state that a big contributor to why the Turnbridge got to be state property has to do with native Dentonian and former Governor Harry Hughes’ thoughts on the matter. Just before taking that office, Hughes was the first MDOT Secretary. “It's no coincidence that the railroad to Denton was conserved under the Governorship of Harry Hughes, who was a huge advocate of what he called ‘a balanced transportation system.’ While the actual purchase happened in January 1982, the work to figure out what to do with all these railroads started in 1976,” Mackay explained. He also mentioned that the same legislation that defined and protected Maryland’s “critical areas” of 1,000 feet around bodies of water also included identifying vulnerable railroad corridors.

History aside, what can be done now? There are four very broad avenues: leave it as-is, demolish it, reinstate railroad service on it, or make it into something else with a few improvements.

“Everyone agrees that something has to get done with it, because it is a huge liability,” Mackay said. The risk of someone climbing the structure and getting hurt (or worse), and the possibility of fire or the bridge collapsing into the Choptank entirely are not taken lightly by the state. According to Mackay, from about 2020 to 2023/24, there was a project almost entirely mapped out for demolishing the Turnbridge. But budget and logistical constraints kept it from transpiring. The effort would have cost over $3 million. Mackay said that MDOT prioritized other projects.

The most viable option seems to be reimagining the corridor as something else.

“Right around 1992 was when Easton decided that they wanted to build a rail trail in town,” Mackay said, “and it was done by 1993.” Chugging right along to 2005, the Tory Brown Rail Trail above Baltimore and the Western Maryland Rail Trail “became very popular.” “On the back of those two, I think there was like a push to say, ‘Hey, let's emulate that over here, and try to get some of that going,’” he said.

In 2007, the Department of Natural Resources came into the picture. The goal of the Maryland Transit Administration was to rail-bank the portion of the railroad that involved Denton. Rail banking is allowed through the National Trail System Act, and the goal is to “conserve rail infrastructure like this that is not being used for trains and letting it be used for something in the intermediate time…in most cases, it's a rail trail,” Mackay said. He went on to explain that the rail infrastructure can also be conserved into transit line or utility right of way. “It can be kind of anything, as long as the potential for the rail service to come back is still there,” Mackay said.

To rail bank the line, there needs to be a “trail sponsor.” The original idea was to have DNR be the “trail sponsor” for the stretch of railroad in Denton, including the bridge. But Mackay explained that idea didn’t pan out. Harry Romano, Mackay’s predecessor and the expert I spoke to for the last installment, was the driving force behind the unique strategy to have the MDOT Secretary’s Office be the official trail sponsor. “It's all different enough that even though MTA is the owner, we could get the Secretary's Office to be the trail sponsor. And they're different enough organizations that that we were able to make that work…So it is rail bank now, and it's conserved for the future.” The rail banking occurred in 2013, and this status remains the defining factor in where the Turnbridge stands.

At the moment, there is nothing actively utilizing the rail corridor in Denton. No trains run across it, no public space has been developed around it, and no utilities have been installed along the right-of-way. On the land surrounding the bridge, you can still find old railroad tracks or see the lines in the road where tracks were paved over. And with the exception of the lights that were added to ensure a boat or bird doesn’t hit it, the bridge hasn’t been touched.

Mackay emphasized that Denton is far from the only place facing this question. Across the Eastern Shore, several trail projects have already been completed or are in development along Maryland Transit Administration rail lines. He believes that, eventually, these disconnected segments could become something larger – connecting rail trails from Kent Island to Centreville to Denton and into Delaware. To inch closer to that pipe dream, Mackay said his solution was to bring DNR back to the table. “The purpose of having DNR was to leverage their knowledge and leverage their ability to do recreation,” he said.

This proposition led to a state grant announced by MDOT last August, which included $160,000 intended for DNR to study and partially design options for converting the “rail-banked” Choptank River railroad bridge for interim rail-trail use. The work would include evaluating what’s left of the structure and developing some design alternatives. But as of mid-January, Mackay said, the grant agreement had not yet been signed. Either way, just the concept of a trail in the works is probably the most exciting movement forward in the Turnbridge’s recent history.

In Mackay’s view, converting the rail corridor and bridge into a functional trail is daunting — but not unachievable.

“I found an example of a very similar bridge out in Idaho,” he said. The Idaho solution to maintaining an open vertical channel for boats was to lift up the railroad bridge. While the example Mackay spoke of vertically expanded a much longer bridge over a much higher clearance, the Turnbridge would only need to meet the required vertical clearance of 25 feet.

You might be thinking ‘how much is that going to cost?’ The answer is: a lot. But Mackay stressed that even a major retrofit would still be cheaper than replacing the bridge entirely.

Even in the best-case scenario, however, Mackay cautioned that change would not come quickly. If any project concerning the bridge were to suddenly move at “warp speed,” he estimated it would still take about five years. Realistically, he said, it may be closer to ten, as long as the ball starts rolling soon.

For now, Mackay said the Turnbridge’s future is “all in the wind.” But if the idea were to gain traction locally…

“It would be really, really helpful… for the town and the community to sort of chime in and just be supportive and push it along a little bit,” he said, “It really would be good for the town because, especially with Denton, that Visitor Center is just fantastic. And then with the Yacht Club and the dock on the other side, and the little basin there… that’s like a perfect little recreational spot. And it would just frame out that whole area, just fantastic.”

Keep that in mind as you look forward to the final installment of this series next month, where we’ll look further ahead to what it might take for the Turnbridge to get a long-awaited makeover.