Bridge Shop

One of the three shops constructed on the site in 1866, the Bridge Shop was another of the specialty manufacturing shops at the Martinsburg complex. On the first floor of the building, employees assembled all the essential parts to construct and repair bridges. These parts would have been put together into ready to assemble kits. Then these kits would have been sent out to other locations on the Baltimore and Ohio lines.

The second floor served multiple purposes for the Martinsburg complex. During its first years, the second floor of the Bridge Shop was utilized as a carpentry shop. The carpenters at Martinsburg made furniture for passenger cars.

An interesting feature on this floor is the platform suspended over the floor. A seamstress used to work up there mending the rips in the workers’ clothes. So that they would not get caught on their machines or something they were working on and get hurt. The seamstress was one of the only women to work on the site. Though this position was later phased out. 

Once the Martinsburg Shops became a maintenance of way shop (a shop used to restore railroad tracks, tools, and equipment used to fix the railroad), they started to use this space as a storage room. The second floor held the parts for bridges, railroad tracks, and various files.