This new railroad bridge in Morrisville is also enjoyed by walkers, runners and cyclists
The new railroad bridge over Crabtree Creek in Morrisville appears to simply be a modern replacement of the wood and steel trestle that had carried trains over the creek for nearly a century.
But the bridge, which opened next to N.C. 54 last year, also anticipates a potential commuter rail line between Raleigh and Durham and solves a problem that had prevented two greenway trails from connecting.
The bridge accomplishes these goals by being both wider and longer than the one it replaced. And the added length is largely due to the involvement of the town of Morrisville.
In 2014, the town approached the North Carolina Railroad about putting a greenway trail underneath the old wooden trestle, beside the creek. That would allow Morrisville’s section of the Hatcher Creek Greenway to hook up with the Crabtree Creek Greenway and on to Cary’s greenway system and Umstead State Park.
But it was quickly clear that there wasn’t room for a trail under the bridge, said Jerry Allen, the town’s director of parks, recreation and cultural resources.
“The bridge abutments basically ran right down to the stream, so there was nowhere to build the greenway,” Allen said. “There was no bank left to build on.”
Proposal and counter-proposal
So the town came back with the idea of building a tunnel to allow the trail to go under the railroad tracks. The town estimated a tunnel would cost more than $1 million, Allen said.
But the N.C. Railroad wasn’t too keen on digging underneath the region’s busiest railroad tracks. “That was not a feasible solution from a railroad engineering perspective,” said Donald Arant, the railroad’s vice president of engineering.
So the railroad made a counter-proposal. The trestle, which opened in 1927, was getting harder to maintain and nearing the end of its useful life. What if the railroad replaced the bridge and the town helped pay to make the new one longer, to make room for the trail underneath.
The town agreed to kick in $1.36 million, roughly what it would have cost to build the tunnel, and the railroad paid the remaining $8.5 million. The new section of trail under the bridge and N.C. 54 opened last fall and has been well received, Allen said.
“Any time I’ve gone to a meeting or talked to a member of the public about greenways, people are just ecstatic that this project is finished,” he said.
In addition to being longer, the new bridge is wide enough for a second track. The N.C. Railroad line between Raleigh and Durham is mostly a single track, with sidings long enough for a freight train.
Eventually, the railroad plans to build a second track, to increase capacity for freight and passenger trains, including the planned commuter rail line. The railroad also made room for a future second track on the bridge over Morrisville Parkway, which eliminated a busy railroad crossing when it opened in 2016.
Making ‘the whole system work better’
Building a wider bridge now is cheaper and easier than coming back and building a second span later, Arant said.
The N.C. Railroad is pleased with the way the project turned out, said Carl Warren, its new president and CEO.
“What I think is really terrific about this project is that it solves several transportation problems at the same time, while also really helping to make progress in improving a vital freight and passenger corridor,” Warren said. “It wasn’t just the modernization of an old wooden trestle; it was really partnering to make the whole system work better.”
The new Crabtree Creek railroad bridge has a name: The Scott M. Saylor and Family Bridge, named for Warren’s predecessor who had spent 31 years with the company and was its president and CEO from 2001 until last year.
