Facility 1433 Rail Bridge (Historical Marker)

Here follows the inscription written on this roadside historical marker:

Facility 1433, Rail Bridge:
The Fort Belvoir Military Railroad (FBMRR) was constructed in 1918 when Camp A.A. Humphreys was made a semi-permanent cantonment as the U.S. entered into World War I. The two main objectives for FBMRR were to bring supplies and troops to camp for its rapid construction and war mobilization and to train engineer troops on the building of railroads, bridges, and other facilities essential to the U.S. war effort in France.

Engineer troops began work for the 4.51-mile, standard gauge railroad in January 1918 by clearing heavily wooded areas before building wooden trestles to span low-lying areas. Facility No. 1433 replaced Wooden Trestle No. 5, which first carried FBMRR above U.S. Route 1. The 102nd Engineers, under Cornelius Vanderbilt III, built trestle Nos. 5 and 6 in 1918. Facility No. 1433, a single-span, concrete, single-track railroad bridge measuring 14 feet in width, was constructed in 1928. The bridge was removed in 2014 for road widening.

Marker Erected 2018 by Fort Belvoir and the Federal Highway Administration.


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Here follows a news article about the railroad bridge written by Adrienne Anderson for the Belvoir Eagle:

Depending on your route to and from Fort Belvoir, you might be used to seeing the railroad bridge situated on Route 1 between Tulley and Pence Gates. This railroad bridge has historical ties to Fort Belvoir, and it's going to be torn down soon.

As part of the widening of Route 1, the trestle bridge has to be demolished, said Christopher Daniel, Fort Belvoir's architecture historian, contracted through URS Corporation.

The majority of the bridge will be torn down overnight Sept. 20, said Tim Brown, construction operations engineer, Eastern Federal Lands Highway Division. They began clearing the area resulting in some overnight lane closures last week.

Lanes will be closed through today from 9:30 p.m. to 5 a.m. and 11 p.m. to 5 a.m. Friday.

"They are removing the bridge so they can start the widening work on the southbound lanes," Brown said.

Once they start constructing lanes, traffic will switch to the southbound lanes, which will occur sometime in December, he said.

Present day impact on Route 1

"(The bridge removal) is an engineering feat due to the fact that it's crossing Route 1 and they have to make sure that when they take it out, we don't actually shut down Route 1," Daniel said. "Even with Mulligan Road open, that passageway would be a choke point for traffic."

In addition to traffic implications, and the bridge's historical significance, the bridge had another impact on the Route 1 construction.

"When we started doing the analysis for Route 1 widening, the bridge crossing Route 1, called 1433, was clearly something that was going to have to be looked at," Daniel said. "Right now, the entire portion of Route 1 is right underneath the bridge. That is perfectly sufficient but … if we're going to expand the road, there is no space on either side."

He said the road would run into the concrete abutment of the bridge as a result. Therefore, the Federal Highway Administration had to ask questions and look at how to avoid impacting the historic property, he said, before they could begin the widening proposal.

The Federal Highway Administration offered to do a Historic American Engineer Record, Daniel said.

A professional group of architects and engineers documented the entire rail bridge. The HAER survey makes a technical record of a structure's unique design and style so that in can be filed with the Library of Congress for future study.

Federal Highways will also install historic markers at major railroad crossing points at roadways, said Daniel.

"It is a symbol of the early development of Fort Belvoir," Daniel said. "The crossing was pivotal for this installation to be the way it is now."

History of the rail corridor:
The original wood trestle bridge was built in 1918 when Fort Belvoir was called Camp A.A. Humphreys, and was the best way to get materials and people in and out of Fort Belvoir, according to Daniel. It was rebuilt with concrete in 1928 in order to accommodate the heavy loads of construction material used to create many of the brick buildings on post.

"It's a vestige of history that is no longer needed because of its use and its purpose, but was always there because it's a hallmark of times gone by," Daniel said. "Railroads are not in the forefront of everybody's mind now. Here, everyone uses the metro … you don't really think about Fort Belvoir relying on rail line to actually grow, but originally, it was that rail line and the smaller rail line that was actually used to move supplies around post. That was the only thing keeping us going."

As time progressed, the railroad became less significant to the development of Fort Belvoir, he said, especially with the growing use of automobiles.

"All the way up to the 1970s, the rail line was used to bring in coal, some goods and even sometimes more troops, especially at the end of World War II," Daniel said. "But it slowly started to fade away as a viable tool for Fort Belvoir. We were too close to everything else already: there was really no need for rail lines."

The rail line was decommissioned in the 1980s, he said, and it became a utility corridor used for communication, power lines and water. As a result, there are portions of the track that remain, particularly the bridges.

"Because we maintained that corridor by continually using it for different purposes, we actually inadvertently protected the rail corridor," Daniel said. "So, in 2007, the Army had to evaluate the rail corridor as well as the bridges. The requirement made of Fort Belvoir is to meet the National Historic Preservation Act."

According to Advisory Council on Historic Preservation, NHPA requires federal agencies to consider the impact of federally funded projects on historic properties.

Fort Belvoir properties considered historic were evaluated, and by then the rail corridor was coming up to 50 years in age. That was the point at which a resource might be considered historic or a significant resource, Daniel said. It was determined that the bridge maintained the integrity of the original concrete bridges constructed in 1928. The rail corridor was evaluated again in 2009 as a multi-property resource to create the Fort Belvoir Military Railroad.

"The railroad was so important to helping grow the installation. That is the justification for why it was a significant historic resource," he said. "Beyond that we also maintained the corridor even after we stopped using the rail line. To this day, you can actually walk the majority of the corridor."

For more information about Route 1 changes, visit http://rte1ftbelvoir.com


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Here follows an excerpt from Nathaniel Lee's book, "The Iron Road of Franconia" that talks about the railroad:

The other major spur that connected to the Washington Southern Railway was the Fort Belvoir Military Railroad, so named after the estate established on the property in 1740. The elegant brick mansion called “Belvoir” belonged to William Fairfax. He was the area tax collector of his day and a cousin to Lord Thomas Fairfax, from whom Fairfax County takes its name. The Belvoir mansion stood watch over the Potomac River for 43 years before a fire gutted it in 1783. During the War of 1812, American forces dug in on the slopes below the house during the four-day Naval Battle of the White House in 1914. What was left of the Belvoir mansion was destroyed by British cannon fire during the battle. The home foundations and adjacent family cemetery are on the National Register of Historic Places.

In 1917, the United States declared war against Germany and entered the fighting in the First World War. The U.S. Army purchased property on the Belvoir peninsula south of the town of Accotink in order to train and prepare engineers for combat in Europe. Unfortunately, getting to the property was another matter entirely. In the closing months of 1917, Virginians were laboring through the harshest winter seen in decades.

Never intended to stand up to the snow or heavy hauling, the muddy farm roads in the vicinity were practically impassable. It took six strong horses to pull an empty wagon down the King’s Highway, and shipping was not an option either, as the Potomac River had frozen over. To assist in the mobilization efforts of troops and supplies, President Woodrow Wilson ordered the United States Railroad Administration to take over the operation of most of the country’s railroads, including the Washington Southern Railway. The construction of a dedicated military railroad was one of the first priorities.

A five-mile-long railroad spur was to be constructed between the main line of the Washington Southern Railway at Accotink Station and the site of Camp Humphreys (present-day Fort Belvoir), which was then under construction. On the morning of January 29, 1918, the Second Battalion of the 304th Engineers departed their headquarters at Camp Meade, Maryland, and arrived by train at Accotink Station three hours later, greeted by a blizzard. In true Army fashion, the men piled out of the train cars for their first ever backpack hike. Five miles of rugged forested country lay before them, and after trudging for hours through six inches of snow, they came to Camp Humphreys just as it began to darken. The barracks, when they reached them, were dirty and cold with just a folding canvas bunk to greet them.

The next day the raging blizzard continued as the men walked five miles with only a sandwich for their lunch to where their campsite was to be. There they worked in the snow all day, ate their cold lunch out in the open and brushed the snowflakes from their sandwiches as they ate. For a week thereafter, the men worked every day constructing their new camp. Mrs. George S. Kernan of the Mount Air plantation house played the kind host to the battalion on her land, and they named their encampment “Camp Merry Widow” in honor of her, while others, less grateful, give it the more obvious nickname of “Camp Mud.”

The Second Battalion began construction of the railroad from Accotink Station, while another group of engineers started to work from Camp Humphreys. Leaving the main railroad line, the proposed railroad right-of-way entered heavily wooded ground, crossed several valleys, plowed through a slight rise and passed their campsite. It then skirted the village of Accotink and crossed several more valleys and streams until it arrived at Camp Humphreys.

The work required various jobs such as cutting timber, flattening hills, filling valleys and building four trestle bridges. The largest of these bridges was some six hundred feet long. The bridge would have a six-degree turn, a two percent grade, and required especially accurate workmanship. The men measured, cut and placed the timbers for the bridge. They cut down timbers for the bridge from the surrounding forest and hauled them from where they grew. Toward the end of the work, when extra speed was called for, they installed a series of electric lights around the bridge. Work continued both day and night.

The battalion managed to complete this project and build passable roads through the area in less than seventy-five days. The battalion left Accotink and returned to their headquarters at Camp Meade, Maryland on April 14, 1918. These same men would be building bridges under German fire in France just a few months later. Victory over Germany would come in November of that year.

When the Fort Belvoir Military Railroad was finished, the power to pull the numerous boxcars, flatcars, coaches and Pullmans came from large steam engines supposedly used in building the Panama Canal. Two engines stayed busy during the First World War. When peace came, one became a stand-by engine. These locomotives ran from 1918 until about 1941 when diesels replaced them. Different engineering schools, including the Light Railway School, took advantage of the railroad as an instructional tool. There were units often learning the hands-on skills needed in building, maintaining and operating a railroad.

The Washington Southern Railway would remain under federal control for a total of 26 months. On February 29, 1920, by proclamation from the President of the United States, operational control of the railway returned to the RF&P Railroad, who officially absorbed the Washington Southern Railway into their own system and the Washington Southern name relegated to the history books.

Over the years, Camp Andrew A. Humphreys continued to grow in size. Many of the area Quaker families lost their land to the fort’s continued expansion and moved away. The name changed in 1935 to Fort Belvoir after President Franklin Roosevelt visited nearby Gunston Hall and learned of the historical associations with the Army property. The military railroad operated until 1997, a span of 79 years. The Base Realignment and Closure agreement, as well as the widening of Richmond Highway, meant the tracks and bridges were finally destroyed to bring the military and the surrounding community into the twenty-first century.