As the operator pulls hard on the train's steering wheel (not really), passengers inside duck to squeeze under the JFX, purportedly with just 1 inch to spare. There is no truth the rumor Baltimore is considering adding a Raven Turn here.

In the distance, note the set of four "tunnels" under North Avenue since they will appear in several tour photos below. Light rail inherited the two on the left from Penn Central (ex-Northern Central (NC), and Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR)) while CSX received the two on the right from B&O. A CSX maintenance of way train is working the rightmost.

Link: Raven Turn illustration

The ends of these gondola cars have been removed to create one long, articulated car.

This MoW train is being pulled and pushed by ex-B&O GP40-model unit number 4059 born October 1971. CSX repainted it into this pumpkin livery, renumbered it 9718, then during 2008 rebuilt it into Road Slug number 2372.

B&O's NA Tower previously stood on the right.

Four B&O tracks met two of NC/PRR at NA Tower. Note third rails that powered smokeless, electric helper engines. They were removed June 1952.

Link: photo source (PDF)

Blueprints show a design made before anyone conceived of double stacks of freight. I'm not sure what the 12-foot, 17-inch measurement was supposed to be. Why not 13 feet and 5 inches? Perhaps it should have been 12.17 feet? This North Avenue bridge version took the place of a Wendell Bollman-designed iron bridge erected in 1870.

Link: image source (PDF)

Before proceeding under North Avenue (ahead), tracks of the Northern Central and B&O met coldly here in a diamond, up to eight of them to be exact. Into the 1980s, B&O's NA Tower oversaw the action from a spot near the center of this photo. That's the JFX casting shadows from the left. Rich Hafer photo at right courtesy North American Interlockings.

NA Tower was one of only three B&O towers in the region that employed an electropneumatic switch system, rather than armstrong levers, and the only one that used air pressure supplied by Pennsylvania Railroad, parent of Northern Central. The other B&O towers that employed air pressure to operate track switches were Riverside and WB Tower in Brunswick, Maryland. Bob Uhland photo of NA's US&S model A5 switch machine at right courtesy North American Interlockings.

Link: NA Tower 1980s photo
Change for: NC tour at this site

The JFX has been on the left since about 1960 and NA Tower was still in use in 1974, while at top a pre-Magnum Tom Selleck hawks cigs. The leftmost tracks are Penn Central's (ex-NC/PRR). Brush has begun to overtake them because their use declined after floods of 1972's Agnes destroyed bridges north of here.

On the right, the thumb protruding from North Avenue marks the north portal of the West Baltimore tunnel opened by Baltimore & Potomac (B&P) Railroad during 1873. B&P Tunnel has three sections -- this one named for nearby John Street -- all of which were inherited by PRR and are now part of Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. A train rumbles through every 10 minutes on average, most of which are Amtrak and MARC passenger trains, plus a few Norfolk Southern freights. The old tunnel became an operational bottleneck due to limiting height, curves, and grade.

If you look closely at the thumb, you'll see a smaller stone arch is contained within a larger one. The smaller is the actual B&P tunnel while the larger arch redirects the weight of North Avenue around it.

Like the other railroads, B&P/Pennsy received two tunnels under North Avenue. The other is underground at photo top, its never-completed eastern portal buried by JFX construction not far from the Selleck billboard, incomplete so long it is all but forgotten; you will find no other mention of it online.

Link: LoC source photo

B&O's Belt Line is sandwiched between North Avenue above and the B&P Tunnel that traverses under. Though Northern Central arrived here first -- a precedence inherited and now enjoyed by light rail -- the B&P Tunnels are the oldest remaining structures (1873), following by the the Belt Line and North Avenue built concurrently during the 1890s.

This uncommon orange-topped pole flags the unusual situation that lies in the shadows ahead...

Under the North Avenue bridge, between the wood planks are steel beams of a B&O bridge over the B&P Tunnel (!). The tunnel was deemed too weak to support trains so closely above it, hence the need for a bridge across it. On the right, once again North Avenue arches over the tunnel so as to not press upon it.

Nowhere were the train height limitations of B&P Tunnel and the Belt Line as focused as this. B&P Tunnel's roofline couldn't be raised because the Belt Line is immediately above. The Belt Line's floor couldn't be lowered because B&P Tunnel is immediately below. The Belt Line's roof could't be raised without modifying North Avenue above.

You know you want to see what is between the B&P arch below and North Avenue arch above.

The answer is not a whole lot. With this arrangement, the lower arch is not actually needed. Its removal might create much-needed additional height for Norfolk Southern freight trains, at least for a brief distance.

Few are aware this is almost a triple arch stack: arch over arch over arch. Hidden below the B&P Tunnel is a stone arch (right) for Butter's Run creek that flows into Jones Falls. This arch might pre-date North Avenue, having been built to carry B&P over the creek.

To create room for CSX double stacks, the roof arch masonry was swapped out for steel as part of the Howard Street Tunnel Project that began in 2025. To avoid entirely closing North Avenue to traffic, work proceeded in halves, with the other (north) half tackled first. By photo time, modification efforts moved to this, the south half. I believe the pipe was added via the construction seen in the 1974 photos on this page.

Links: Federal Railroad Administration report, B&P Tunnel project

By six months later, the masonry was gone but only one of the two tracks had been reconnected. (Photo edited due to graffiti.)

This photo captures the bridge modifications after only the north half received its steel beams. The masonry was removed once the south half was similarly modified. This was lots of effort to gain about 18 inches of clearance.

The final result of the North Avenue modifications is expected to look something like this. I was hoping for concrete embossing that mimics the appearance of the original masonry. Flat surfaces are tagger magnets.

Four B&O tracks had passed under North Avenue and an adjacent semaphore signal bridge. NA Tower stands near center. North Avenue hides three of the eight track diamonds B&O formed with NC/PRR.

The bottom of this photo shows a total of four B&O tracks on the bridge this side (north) of North Avenue. The panels below have additional discussion.

Link: source photo

NA Tower is at bottom left. Beyond North Avenue's masonry, from near to far, B&O's line S-curves over former NC tracks (later remade for Amtrak access to the Frederick Douglass Tunnel), the Jones Falls, Falls Road and the ex-Ma & Pa main line (repurposed by the Baltimore Streetcar Museum).

Amtrak's Frederick Douglass tunnel (center) is planned within sight of the ex-B&O bridge (bottom). The Jones Falls flows near the roots of the trees that form a vertical green strip right of center.

Change for: PRR/Amtrak tour at this site

The steel bridge over those items was built on a 10 degree curve in 1894. This design looks intended to support four tracks, but see photos below.

The bridge was reduced to two tracks some time ago. The left side looks too narrow to itself support two tracks -- but it did in the past.

Link: 2013

The left-right width disparity is more evident from above. Though I find no documentation of such an effort, I am forced to conclude the left half of this bridge was narrowed after 1940.

This aerial photo may have captured bridge narrowing work in progress, however its resolution is too low to discern exactly what effort was underway. Perhaps the disued third rail power supply for helper engines was being removed. Once helper motors were no longer needed, the tracks on which they rolled back to Mt. Royal Station were similarly no longer needed.

A small B&O yard called Coalmen's Row is at upper right.

Deep zoom across the Jones Falls Valley brings this reverse view back to North Avenue.

One of North Avenue's arches does span actual water. On the bridge beyond, note B&O's electric motors that pulled trains through the Howard Street Tunnel. The motors escorted most trains a mile or two beyond that tunnel's east portal.

Link: same spot 1967

B&O retired its electric helper engines when diesels like these became available during the 1950s.

Where the Belt Line bridge over the Jones Falls valley returns to land, it finds the Baltimore Streetcar Museum (BSM), here exercising their number 7407 built by the Pullman-Standard Car Manufacturing Company during 1944 for the Baltimore Transit Company. BSM's track gauge of 5 feet 4.5 inches is wider than standard, replicating that required by city law to permit 19th century private wagons to share the rails.

Link: Derailment 15 Mar 2019

After heading mostly north from Camden Station, the Belt Line in the 1890s finally reached a then-lesser-developed area of Baltimore City where land was less expensive. The Belt Line could finally turn east here. The cities of Philadelphia and New York are more east than north of Baltimore.

To my knowledge, number 94 is CSX's highest posted mile along the ex-B&O Belt Line. It measures from B&O's passenger station at 24th and Chestnut in Philadelphia.

The extra width on the right originates with a siding that led into a small yard along Howard Street known as Coalmen's Row.

In this 1974 view, milepost 94 hugs the closer curve at left, while North Avenue and Howard Street (fomerly Oak Street) intersect at bottom. At photo center, the small yard known as Coalmen's Row saw railroad use into the 1980s before conversion into commercial / industrial property. Now, there are no RR artifacts visible within. B&O dropped off coal here for distribution by local porters. Baltimore's last coal delivery person worked into the 2000s.

Various stone quarries on the left had carved into the valley hillside, one of which was owned by stonecutter Hugh Sisson for whom a nearby street is named. This zoom of the top left shows what B&O called Oak Street Junction, the dark area near the center where steep track had interconnected the Belt Line and Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad. That's an ex-Ma & Pa maintenance shed at left along Falls Road.

Link: LoC source photo
Change for: Ma & Pa tour at this site

Few know of B&O's brick-lined, stone-arch bridge for Glen Edwards Avenue. Before its northeast end was plugged circa 1950, it connected what is now Hampden Avenue with Falls Road. The open end served as an unofficial homeless shelter at photo time.

Ma & Pa's operation in Maryland shuttered during 1958, and with it this connection now occupied by homeless. An individual had designs on reactivating this route (link below).

Link: the new Northern Central