It's finally coming down.
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The oft-delayed demolition of the Route 222 railroad overpass — a Solanco landmark often cursed by drivers — is scheduled to begin Monday morning.
Demolition crews for Brubacher Excavating of Bowmansville plan to close the road — the unofficial entrance to Quarryville — at 7 a.m. and post a detour.
The single-arch, century-plus-old bridge fashioned from hand-cut stones carved by immigrant stone masons will be dropped within five days. The detour, however, is estimated to be in effect for 10 days.
That would end a nearly 20-year quest to tear down the structure, built to carry trains on the Enola Low Grade rail line.
Norfolk Southern, which had been ordered by the Pennsylvania Public Utility Commission to tear down the long-standing traffic bottleneck, hired Brubacher to do the work.
The project was supposed to have been completed by the end of 2008 but was delayed as Amtrak moved its power lines on the abandoned Low Grade.
Over the project's 10-day schedule, crews will scrape bare earth off the top of the tunnel, then put a cushsion of earth on the highway before pushing its arch up with machinery and allowing its heavy stone slabs to collapse in on themselves.
There are hundreds of the historic stones, each weighing about 4,000 pounds.
Providence Township plans to use 36 of the slabs to line a planned parking lot off Fairview Road for the public to use to get to a recreational trail on the Low Grade line, Supervisor C. William Shaffer said this morning.
Now that the Low Grade will no longer cross over Route 222, Shaffer said a path or bike ramp will probably be put on each side of the highway for an at-grade crossing. However, no plans have been made, he said.
The tunnel has long been considered a hazard because of its narrow lanes and because trucks and other vehicles higher than automobiles have to move to the center of the roadway, straddling both lanes, to pass through safely.
"Yep, it's going to happen. It's not going to be a traffic hazard anymore," Jon Knight, an estimator for Brubacher, commented this morning.
However, advocates of a public trail on the Low Grade and historians had urged officials to find a way to keep the arched overpass.
And some Quarryville residents have voiced worries that the removal of the traffic impediment will invite more truck traffic onto borough streets and will mean motorists will drive faster on the straight stretch of highway as they enter the town.
Coming from Lancaster and points north, the detour route will take motorists west onto Penn Grant Road, then south on Route 272 to the Buck, then east on Route 372 to Quarryville.
Staff writer Ad Crable can be reached at acrable@LNPnews.com or 481-6029.
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