The Western Maryland Railway: Baltimore to Cumberland & the New Line

By Brian Paulus

This book covers the history of the Western Maryland Railway.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jan 20, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524651190

Brian Paulus

The author is a native of the Cumberland, Maryland, area. He’s an avid fan of the Western Maryland Railway, in which he grew up with in Oldtown, Maryland. He’s a former CSX engineer where he operated trains between Cumberland and New Castle, Pennsylvania. He transferred to Amtrak and works out of Washington, D.C. where he’s an engineer on Amtrak’s Crescent, plus he’s also qualified on Amtrak’s Capitol Limited. Other hobbies include Health and Fitness, animal rights, and he is a fan of both the Ravens and Orioles. He resides in Severn, Maryland. You can visit his website at westernmarylandrailway.com.

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2017 Brian Paulus. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/16/2017

ISBN: 978-1-5246-5118-3 (sc)

           978-1-5246-5119-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016919257

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

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The Western Maryland Railway

Baltimore to Cumberland & the New Line

Volume III

BRIAN PAULUS

(Cover Photo): Western Maryland red, white and black F7A 234, coupled to Nickel Plate Road 2-8-4 759, is seen in Thurmont, Maryland on East Subdivision rails. The event was a two-day excursion from Baltimore to Connellsville and back which featured 759 leading the Blue Mountain Express, who’s name was derived by Western Maryland Vice President of Operations George Lielich. Western Maryland F7A’s 234 and 231, both in matching Circus livery, were helper units out of Hagerstown and were used to assist 759 up and over the stiff South Mountain grade.

Its been reported that the warm up for this trip occurred 26 days earlier, when NKP 759 led AJ-1 through the fog from Hagerstown to Cumberland, then returned in the early afternoon with train AJ-2.

This was the Saturday run of October 17,1970 and both days were absolutely beautiful, the following day 759 and the Blue Mountain Express returned from Connellsville. I remember October 18, 1970, but I didn’t see the Blue Mountain Express, instead I watched the Baltimore Colts play the New York Jets on television in a rematch of Super Bowl III. Baltimore gained a measure of revenge that day for their devastating Super Bowl defeat at the hands of Namath and the Jets (21 months earlier), beating Broadway Joe on his home turf 29-22.

Check out the builder’s plate on the 2-8-4 as it reads: LIMA LOCOMOTIVE WORKS AUGUST 1944.

Today 759 remains on static display at the Steamtown National Historic Site, Scranton, Pennsylvania.

(Brian Paulus Collection)

2.95MB%20Introduction%20Page%20Photo%20(4-1962).tif

Welcome to The Western Maryland Railway … Baltimore to Cumberland & The New Line Volume III.

We head back to the glory days of yesteryear on the famous Western Maryland Railway.

The Western Maryland began over a decade ahead of the American Civil War when the American General Assembly granted a charter to the Baltimore, Carroll and Frederick Rail Road Company on Thursday, May 27, 1852. This same road, which would officially become the Western Maryland Rail Road on March 21,1853, now gave its president and directors the powers necessary for construction of a rail line from the city of Baltimore, or from a suitable point of the Baltimore & Susquehanna Rail Road, to the Carroll County town of Westminster, Maryland. From there it could now build to the Monocacy River in the direction of Hagerstown.

On August 11,1859 a new, ten mile line from northwest Baltimore to Owings Mills was dedicated and in the fall of 1861 the Western Maryland had reached Union Bridge, Maryland.

Ten years later, on August 28,1871, the Western Maryland Rail Road was now open to Sabillasville, Maryland (west of Thurmont) and one year later on August 3,1872 they had reached the Hub City of Hagerstown, Maryland in Washington County.

The Western Maryland continued to push westward, heading southwest out of Hagerstown to Williamsport, six miles away. On December 17,1873 the Western Maryland Rail Road opened their new 90-mile line from Baltimore to Williamsport. In Williamsport the WM connected with another transportation route, the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal. Thirty years after this important connection was achieved the Western Maryland would parallel the canal as they expanded west to Cumberland.

At Williamsport the Western Maryland Rail Road now had a connection to the rich coal fields of the west.

Williamsport was the coal hauling route of the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, which had been in service between Cumberland (its western terminus) and Washington, DC since April 1950. The canal had been granted exclusive rights to build west from Maryland Heights (opposite Harpers Ferry, WV) to Cumberland all in the state of Maryland. This forced the Baltimore & Ohio, which had wanted to stay in Maryland, to now build west to Cumberland on the south bank of the Potomac River (its least desired route).

Signs were posted at the 15,000 ton coal storage yard in Williamsport that read: The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal and the Western Maryland Rail Road – Water the Element, Steam the Offspring, Coal the Agent and Baltimore and Williamsport – United by iron hands, may the future trade and friendship require

these bonds to grow.

Chesapeake & Ohio president A.P. Gorman announced that the Western Maryland Rail Road was the right arm of the canal. The Baltimore Sun wrote a very clear and detailed article about the new joint business and how it would be more profitable for canal boats to now only have to tow coal from Cumberland to Williamsport (just 85 miles in distance) as compared to the full, 184.5 mile haul to Washington, DC. However this joint venture never really lived up to expectations, the C&O Canal suffered from poor management, poor maintenance costs and flooding while the Western Maryland had to pay high trackage charges through Baltimore to tidewater plus battle the stiff grade of South Mountain restricting the railroad to hauling only 15 loaded iron hoppers at a time.

In 1892 Western Maryland president John Miffen Hood opened a new 14-mile westward connection from Williamsport to Big Pool, Maryland then across the Potomac River connecting to the Baltimore & Ohio’s mainline at Cherry Run, WV. This new extension was deemed Hoods most important connection of his 28 year run as president of the company. Then on March 12,1899 Hood completed his last major connection, another 14-mile route, this time linking Hagerstown with Quinsonia, Pennsylvania on the Lurgan Subdivision. This greatly reduced the travel time between the two locations and became the new link replacing the old route via Waynesboro (with its steep mountain grades) and became known as the Altenwald Cutoff. The heavily traveled trunk route of the Philadelphia & Reading and the B & O between Shippensburg and Cherry Run was now much faster.

Today, the connection from Hagerstown to Cherry Run via Big Pool is still active and is the furthest point west that the Western Maryland Rail Road (of course later changed to Railway) now exists.

Likewise the Altenwald Cutoff remains active between Hagerstown and Quinsonia but this former route that connected with the Philadelphia & Reading (later Reading) in Shippensburg was severed in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania due to its many road crossings and ten mile per hour speed limit.

We’ll be discussing the Lurgan Subdivision, along with the B & O’s Cherry Run connection and of course the Gould’s expansion west to Cumberland (known as the Cumberland Extension) and their further expansion west over the rugged Allegheny Mountains to Connellsville, Pennsylvania on what was referred to as the New Line.

So welcome to The Western Maryland Railway…Baltimore to Cumberland & The New Line Volume III.

(Photo on Page V): My father took me over to South Cumberland and the Western Maryland’s 9th Crossing of the Potomac one sunny morning in April 1962. The only recollection I have of this event is walking on the ties across the bridge, I wasn’t even four years old at the time.

In the background is the Western Maryland’s Knobley Tunnel and if you look closely you can make out the four lights in the tunnel’s arch, it looks as if some tunnel work was going on inside.

In April 1962 Knobley Tunnel still had 14 years remaining of active mainline service.

(Jim Paulus Photo)

Table of Contents

Introduction

Port Covington (Baltimore)

The Western Maryland in Baltimore

The Hanover and East Subdivisions

Rutherford Yard and the Lurgan Subdivison

Hagerstown, Maryland

Williamsport Hill

Williamsport, Maryland

Big Spring, Maryland

Big Pool, Maryland

The Parkhead-Moffett Derailment 1970

Hancock, Maryland

East End of Round Top

Indigo Tunnel

Jerome, West Virginia

Kiefer, Maryland

Town Creek, Maryland

Oldtown, Maryland

North Branch, Maryland / PPG Industries

The 9th Crossing of the Potomac / Knobley Tunnel

Maryland Junction

Knobmount Yard

Cumberland, Maryland

The Cumberland Narrows / Bridge 1679

Helmstetter’s Curve

Frostburg, Maryland

Colmar, Pennsylvania / Big Savage Tunnel

Deal, Pennsylvania

Keystone Viaduct

Meyersdale, Pennsylvania / Salisbury Viaduct

Rockwood, Pennsylvania