Cumberland Connection

The Western Maryland Railroad station in  Cumberland, MD. This spot in The Queen City is where the C&O Canal, The B&O/CSX RR and the Great Allegheny Passage rail trail meet at the confluence of the Potomac River and Wills Creek, one of five gaps allowing passage over the Allegheny Mountain range, the other Cumberland Gap. It is also where during the French and Indian War British General Braddock, with his aide, Colonel George Washington,  marshaled his forces at Fort Cumberland before attacking the French at Fort Duqusne, now Pittsburgh. Braddock suffered fatal wounds when his force was ambushed en route to Fort Duquesne. George Washington assumed command. In 1794 President Washington again used Cumberland as a staging area before he marched into Pennsylvania as Commander in Chief of an American army to suppress The Whiskey Rebellion on the western frontier of the new nation. More photos here.

On the Road Again - Sykesville to Woodbine

On the rail road that is. Picking up where I left off in June on my quest to hike the B&O Old Main Line, I hiked from Sykesville to Woodbine, or at least to Morgan Road, about a mile from Woodbine. Four and a half mile each way. Nine miles in four hours with time to stop and smell the creosote and snap a few pictures. It was a perfect day for hiking; cool and partly cloudy, temperature in the mid 60's. Beautiful! Saw lots of wildlife:  at least a half dozen deer, hawks, geese, a blue heron, cattle, horses, bright colored song birds and even a box turtle trying to figure out how to get over a rail to cross the tracks. After a train passed over him, he turned back the way he came. Here is a view of the old Sykesville yard looking back toward the east.

I parked beside Baldwin Station in a lot on the old Sykesville freight yard, which has some old rail cars. It also serves as a staging area for Maintenance of Way vehicles for CSX. The 29 mile marker is about a quarter mile from Baldwin Station just around a bend heading west. The short Sykesville tunnel is another quarter mile down the tracks. It has two bridges over the Patapsco River, one on each approach. The river makes a sharp bend to the north around the ridge that the tunnel goes through. So, between the two bridges the track is in Howard County for a few hundred yards, then back into Carroll County. After the tunnel there are four at grade road crossings in the next four miles: Gaither Rd., Hoods Mill Rd., Rt 97 and Morgan Rd. about a quarter mile past the 33 mile marker on the approach to Woodbine. I encountered two eastbound trains during my hike and heard the whistle of a third train, headed west, as I drove out of Sykesville at the end of my hike.

I have posted more photos of today's hike at this link, but the pair of geese below, cruising the Patapsco, were too beautiful not to include here.

Tagged Rolling Stock

Generally I am not a fan of graffiti, but it seems to me that certain canvasses are so bland or ugly that graffiti actually enhances the object that gets tagged or decorated. This piece of art on a piece of CSX stock caught my eye as it rolled by on one of my recent hikes. There was just something about the colors and the textured background that I found appealing. The photo does pose a question. Did the artist work around the stock number on the bottom edge of the carriage, or did CSX re-stencil it while leaving the rest of the art intact?

Another Cup of Coffee

The weekend job got cancelled this morning and I am so glad. It was a beautiful day for hiking. So, I hiked along the Old Main Line from Ilchester to Ellicott City for another cup of coffee at the Bean Hollow. Nice walk along the rails, maybe two miles covered easily in an hour.Took a break for a latte and a scone at the Hollow and walked back. Encountered three CSX trains along the way, two headed west, one eastbound. I did not expect to see anything interesting on this stretch of tracks, but I was surprised by a few items. First this interesting tipped over structure.

Obviously it was some sort of service building at one time. It's big, at least two stories tall when upright, and made of reinforced concrete. It appeared to have been tipped over backward right next to the rail bed. What the hell was it? I searched the web and learned that it was a coaling tower built during World War II at the small, but no longer existing, village of Lees to provide a coaling station away from the busy and congested rail yards in Baltimore. But what did it look like during its useful service? The answer to that question was a bit more difficult to find. But find it I did, and you can see a vintage photo of the Lee water tower penstocks and the very same coaling tower here. In the vintage photo you are looking west toward Ellicott City.

The other item of interest was a pair of maintenance of way machines parked at a dead end siding on the approach to Ellicott City.

This line of track was in a terrible state of disrepair seemed not to have been used in many years. Turns out is was a special siding devoted to the flour mill on the Baltimore County side of the Patapsco at Ellicott City. There is an old disused trestle bridge that once carried tracks from the mill to the siding along the Old Main Line. The siding is now used as a convenient parking place for rail maintenance machinery. And of course it would not be right to end without a shot of one of the trains encountered on my hike.

View From Above The Dorsey Tunnel

Hiked from the Alberton Road lot off Dogwood Road all the way to the east portal of the Dorsey tunnel. I decided to see if there was a walk around trail to the west opening. There wasn't a real path, but I followed a deer trail down onto the flood plain of the Patapsco until the hill came all the way down to the river and I was forced up at a very steep grade. Only a few deer hoof prints were visible on what was barely a trace. I did make it to the west portal as you can see, but I do not recommend doing this. Very steep, rough, slippery going. And you have to retrace the same tricky return passage. It was a workout. The hike made clear the reason the B&O decided to blast the tunnel through this ridge, which is 400 feet high. On the return hike I ran into the fellow below. He seemed kind of lonely, so I gave him some space for a personal ad.

Train Station at Point of Rocks, Maryland

This beautiful station, designed by Ephraim Francis Baldwin and completed in 1876, sits at the junction of the Baltimore and Ohio RR Old Main Line out of Baltimore and its Metropolitan Branch out of Washington. It is also where the B&O met the C&O Canal. The railroad and canal, after a nasty legal fight from 1828 to 1832, shared the right of way side by side along the Potomac river as far as Harper's Ferry. I visited the site this morning with my brother Chris before we hiked a few miles on the adjacent C&O Canal towpath. More photos here.

Steel Away - Hauling Off American Steel

Today, just below the Ilchester tunnel on the CSX / B&O Old Main Line, this maintenance vehicle is rolling on newly laid Nippon Steel rails and hauling off old US Steel rails, which were laid in 1958. They were working in the tunnel today. Otherwise it was a beautiful day for hiking with a friend and one of my brothers.

US Steel - What Happened?

Recently I have spent a lot of time walking the rails of the CSX / B & 0 RR Old Main Line, have posted many photos of the tracks. You may have noticed that there are unsecured rails laying next to the tracks and between dual tracks. A major rail maintenance project is in the works. The new rails and plates are being laid out all along the line in preparation for swapping out the old rails for new. In the past week I looked closely at the old and new rails. The old rails were manufactured by US Steel in Illinois in 1957. Assuming they were placed on the tracks in 1958, they have carried trains for 55 years! The new replacement rails, set to be placed in 2013 were made in 2012 in Japan. I aked myself: How is it possible for Japan, which has so few natural resources that prior to WW II  it was importing scrap metal from the US for their war efforts, can produce steel rails and transport, them across the Pacific ocean, then over or around North American to Baltimore cheaper than a US steel manufacturer can make them and deliver them here in the USA? What has happened to our country? And why?

The Sphinx of Ilchester

Reinforcement

There are many small stone arched bridges carrying the Old Main Line over tributaries of the Patapsco river. I have never seen one reinforced and stablilized in this manner. It is on the stretch of rails between the Davis tunnel and Woodstock.

Dorsey Redux

Same location as last post. Looking east from the opening of the Davis tunnel toward the Dorsey tunnel. I love the day to day variations in the color tones any one location. This photo was taken today. The cloudy sky and muted colors appeal to me.

Eastbound to the Dorsey Tunnel

On the Old Main Line of the B & O just east of the Davis tunnel looking east across the Patapsco River toward the Dorsey tunnel in the distance. You can see that CSX is setting us to replace the rails on the bridge, using the old parallel track truss as the staging area for a crane. The new rails are laid along side the current rails they will replace.