The west end of the Adamstown Cutoff had met and joined B&O's Metropolitan Branch here on the right. This view looks back to the railroad facilities at Point of Rocks.

The gap in the trees marks the location. This spot is about a mile east of Point of Rocks, and is where we'll start measuring the Cutoff distance.

As the Cutoff gradually ascends, sections are quite overgrown and difficult to follow. The flat shelf of land is the primary indication a railroad had once been here.

This is the first of over a dozen culverts that can be found along the route. About half are of this simple piped design.

Ties like this one can be found at scattered locations. They have endured for at least 60 to 70 years; the Cutoff was given a rehab in the early 1940s as preparation for possible need for the war effort.

Curves like this were the Achilles' heel of the Cutoff. The primary curve along the route was located at a steep section. The combination meant that in wet weather the engine wheels would slip and the trains would get stuck. Stuck trains meant delays and the need for a helper engine, the very item the Cutoff had been designed to eliminate.

B&O tried to ease the grade via this cut, but the work didn't resolve the problem Someone has since filled in a portion of the cut, perhaps a utility company to provide access to the wires seen overhead.

This is the view back from down inside the cut.

For most of the final 30 years of its existence, the Cutoff served as a storage track of sorts, hosting B&O equipment in need of repair.

The long-lived granite slabs of several box culverts are to be found. B&O appears to have used box culverts (instead of piped ones) where larger flows of water were expected. The opening of this one is about 5 feet high. Some of the stones exhibit the lines of 20th century drilling techniques, revealing this is not an original 1830's culvert.

MD 28 crosses Tuscarora Creek as seen here, but the hump in the road just beyond is the reason for this photo: that had been the grade crossing for the Cutoff. The road bridge in the foreground has been replaced since the time of this photo.

This brobdingnagian box culvert is the largest to be found anywhere along the OML. Dave stands by as a height reference, and he's no lilliputian. He comments that this is the intake side of the culvert, and the other side is even larger.

By the 20th century, machinery made it possible to handle ever bigger slabs of granite, so the railroad opted for a box design here. Earlier builders would probably have chosen an arch.

Another piped culvert sits at the edge of a farm field.

The input end of this culvert is more like a drain, the only one I know of this design on the OML. Dave remarks that it's so unusual that perhaps it was modified into this form by a local landowner/farmer.

The Cutoff crosses Pleasant View Road as seen in the view that looks back (south).

In the opposite direction the Cutoff is now this private driveway, but hiding beneath...

...is this beautiful arched bridge, the largest on the Cutoff. Any B&O railfan would be proud to have this carrying their front driveway.

The flat area near the speed limit sign shows where the Cutoff had again crossed Pleasant View Road.

Some stone ballast and wooden ties still mark the disused right of way here. The total length of the Cutoff was 6.2 miles (as measured from Point of Rocks).

Utility poles spanning the middle of a cornfield tell you where the Cutoff had been. This is looking back from the Doubs Road grade crossing.

By turning around from the prior photo, one can see the gravel road that traces the Cutoff. It's getting close to rejoining the Old Main Line, marked by the utility poles on the left.

Hiding in grass made brown by the drought of summer 2007, the Cutoff has saved one more artifact for us...

...it's one more piped culvert, this one sun bleached.

The culvert can look across to an older sibling of the arched variety. The bridge in the distance has carried the OML over Tuscarora Creek since the 1830s.

CSX 65 and CSX 5116 point the way to the spot in the distance where the Adamstown Cutoff and Old Main Line had rejoined.

Many thanks to the Hiteshews for their travels spent gathering these pictures, and then sharing them with all of us.