YORK COUNTY, Pa. — A security camera captured the moment a tractor-trailer smashed into the historic railroad bridge in Seven Valleys, York County earlier this month.
The footage belongs to The Valley Tavern off Main Street.
“Over the years there’s been incidents, so I know this is not the first time,” said Vinnie Johnson, a customer and trail rider.
Johnson has seen trucks avoid the bridge because of the posted height restrictions which are 11’1”.
“I was in the valley for dinner last week for dinner and a truck was sitting out here trying to figure out how to renavigate their GPS,” Johnson said.
A truck was stuck underneath the same bridge after striking it in 2018.
Locals say they hear it's been a long-standing problem.
It’s not known how hard the truck hit the bridge, but the force was enough to knock the rail tracks out of place and is causing some concerns.
“Having this bridge down does really impact us in not a great way,” said Ashely Zimmerman, executive director of the historical nonprofit Northern Central Railway.
Zimmerman says they were only made aware of the incident recently.
“We were not notified, it was actually our train superintendent, she noticed it while we were driving around the track and she was like ‘we have to stop, this is not safe.’ She actually made the safety call, and we rearranged our schedule for the weekend, we notified the York County parks department and right away they were on it looking at it with the county engineering firm.”
Seven Valleys borough posted on social media in response to the incident, saying the bridge remains safe for pedestrian traffic and bikes.
However, the borough is unsure when train traffic will continue for the railway.
Zimmerman says the organization is waiting to hear back about what to do next.
“We have never had an incident this extreme with that bridge that has actually adjusted our schedule.”
FOX43 reached out to the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation for comment and received the following information.
“We generally do not do height restriction bars, as they present their own safety problems. We follow federal guidance on advance warning for low-height bridges instead. The Department has revised the warning signs several times throughout the years to try to increase driver awareness and compliance. While I do not know the frequency of the hits, over-height vehicles hit the bridge because the drivers fail to heed the abundance of warning signs that are conspicuously located. There are automated over-height warning systems, but such systems can be expensive and unreliable. If the bridge owner wants to pursue such automated systems to prevent over-height vehicles from hitting their bridge, they would need to go through the permitting process, similar to traffic signals."
“Lowering the road – there is a concern that lowering the road could undermine the abutments holding the overhead bridge. If York County wanted to do some hand excavation to see how far down they could go before it’s a problem, I think we could have a discussion about it. There would need to be coordination with the bridge owner (assuming it is the railroad). The York MPO would also need to be involved in determining if funding was available for such a project.”