Pappa at the Paw Paw - A Father's Day Trek with Kristen

A few years ago I purchased a book titled Weird Maryland. Yes, there are books for other states in the series, and for the USA as a whole. A sharp marketing concept for sure. Anyway, in the Maryland edition, space is given to the Paw Paw tunnel, the largest structure on the C & O Canal, and a major engineering feat when it was dug in the mid 1800s.. Why it should be designated as weird rather than interesting or historic, I don't know. I guess they had to fill the book, and there weren't enough truly weird places in Maryland.  But, Paw Paw got my lovely daughter's attention. She was seized by a desire to go there and suggested it as a Father's Day adventure for the two of us. It fits right in with my railroad hikes and the tunnels on the Old Main Line of the B &O Railroad. So, off we went. It was a return trip for me. I had walked the tunnel before, about 50 years ago, when I was a Boy Scout on a canoe trip along a parallel stretch of the Potomac river. The walkway is the towpath used by mules that towed the canal boats. It was dark then, and it's still dark in there. Not like this long exposure. More like the one below it.

Take a flashlight, or a headlamp. The tunnel is 3,118 feet long and unlit.

More photos here.

Henryton to Sykesville and Baldwin Station

Started out this morning about 9:25 at the rail crossing on Marriottsville Road which is about the 24.5 mile mark on the B&O Old Main Line. About a half mile west you hit the 25 mile mark and the Henryton tunnel is in view. The tunnel is short, 430 feet, and you can see clearly through to the other end. It is also one of the oldest railroad tunnels in the world in continuous use. Unlike the terrain at  Dorsey tunnel,  this location has a decent walkaround path along the river. As soon as you pass through or around the tunnel you come to an old power plant that contained the boiler for the Henryton State Hospital that was originally built for tuberculosis patients and was later used as a hospital for patients then described as mentally retarded. The buildings are now in ruins and are slated for demolition. Fuel, probably coal, for the power plant was obviously delivered by rail. The siding tracks running up to the side of the building can still be observed in places.

Along the rails I saw a huge white tail buck, a red fox, a great blue heron and a ground hog. Only the ground hog moved slow enough for me to get a photo. I also observed a large stand of bamboo at Henryton, just off the rails on the flood plain of the Patapsco. It looked out of place. I believe bamboo is an invasive specie of plant, and I wonder who started this stand and how far it will spread. Now all we need are some pandas.

The historic Sykesville, Maryland train station is now a restaurant, Baldwin Station, named after the architect who designed the station along with several other on the Old Main Line, including the one at at Point of Rocks, the subject of a previous post. Note how this station in Sykesville is designed to look like a train engine. Also note the distinctive smokestack chimney. Sykesville and its station are at the 28.5 mile mark. My hike was eight miles, four in each direction. It took me about four and a half hours, which included time for a beer at the restaurant. I was back to my car by 1:55 pm. The rail bed really hugs the river most of the way along this stretch of track. The right of way is very narrow for much of the distance. I saw only one train, eastbound to Baltimore. More photos can be seen 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?

Middle Patuxent Environmental Area - Mystery Car in the Woods

There is a car in the woods at the MPEA in Howard County, MD. Very much out of place now, but probably disposed of when the land was privately held and before it became an environmental property managed mostly for the benefit of various bird species and especially the woodcock. I met several birders on my hike there yesterday. Very nice and informative people. I also found my camera woefully inadequate for capturing small hyperactive birds. But I love a mystery. So I set out to identify the year, make and model of the abandoned auto hulk. Because all identifying markers, lettering or medallions, were gone, I focused on the bumpers and grilles of late 1950s and early 1960s, all American made of course, before the flood of foreign imports. Nobody made chrome bumpers and grilles like American car manufacturers in the 50s and 60s. The distinctive two over two headlights and turn signal sockets and the four hash marks on the fenders behind the headlights were the key markers I looked for, along with the beginning of the horizontal fin on the rear fender.  So here it is: the lovely 1958 Chevrolet Impala. I think I even found the right color. This photo I found here on an internet search. It is not one of my photos.

Woodstock to the Henryton Tunnel and Back

This morning I hiked the B&O Old Main Line from Woodstock to the Henryton tunnel, about three and half miles each way. It was a pretty stretch of track on a beautiful day. I saw two deer and a fox, which were too fast for me to get my camera ready.

The phrase "sylvan glades" captures the look of much of the track-side scenery, which included a fox's den.

The Henryton tunnel, built in 1903, is about a half mile west of Marriottsville Road and about a hundred yards past the 25 mile marker next to the track.          

There were no iron horses on rails today, probably because of tomorrow's holiday. However I did encounter some flesh and blood horses back at my starting point. It seems the "biker bar" at the Old Court / Woodstock Road rail crossing in Woodstock is as much a "horsewoman's bar" as it is a biker's. After I downed a brew with the boys, a few of the ladies let me photograph their rides.

This guy was the best looking of the herd and he just loved to pose.

All in all a very pleasant outing on a beautiful, sunny and cool day.

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.