Trestle Bridge in Downingtown, PA

I was wondering who owns or owned the large trestle bridge that crosses over 322 in Downingtown, PA. I used to see it all the time as a kid, but I cannot remember if I ever saw service on it or not. Does anyone know when service was cut? It looks as if, from a map around 1913, that it could be the Darby Creek Low-Grade. I think the fly-over at whitford is part of this line. I can't seem to find any history on the trestle bridge or definitive proof of what the line actually is.

This is the Glen Loch-to-Thorndale line (sort of an extension to the Trenton Cutoff). All the rails have been ripped up for years now, but unlike the nearby defunct Chester Valley line from KoP to Downingtown, the right-of-way (including bridges) is still intact.

If I recall correctly the last revenue service was in 1991.

Back in the early 1980's, Conrail, as successor to the Penn Central and Pennsylvania Railroad(s), closed down the formely-electrified freight operation between Enola Yard at Harrisburg and the East Coast.

This service formerly operated between Enola and Trenton, N> J. via Columbia, Parkesburg, and Thorndale, intesecting the Harrisburg-Lancaster-coatesville passenger line in the process.

With the formation of Conrail, the former East Penn mainline of the Reading, via Lebanon, provided a more suitable opportunity, and what was uaually known as the "Low Grade Line" and/or "trenton Cuitoff" was retired

But in the wake of recent major, and likely, permanent shifts in the energy picture, the first stirrings of aovement to revive Harrisburg-Reading-Lehigh Valey-New York passenger rail service are getting under way, and I believe such a move would require diversion of much of the reeight traffic, currently about 35 moves daily east of Reading and at least 55 to the west.

It will likely take a few more years, and more pain at the pump, but that line is simpy too strategic to dismantle.