(rshsdepot) Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad Depots

[jdent1_@_optonline.net]

From The Jeffersonian.com...

Rail fans stoke memories of Ma & Pa's old stations
 
Slide show set for Sunday in Cockeysville 
03/15/07
By Lauren Taylor

Although it was only 77 miles long and shut down fewer than 60 years after it was formed, traces of the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad can still be found in Baltimore County.

One station has found new life as a carryout restaurant and parts of the line have been transformed into a hiking and biking trail.

Rudy Fischer, a member of the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society, will give a slide presentation on the "Ma & Pa" railroad stations in Baltimore County at 2 p.m. Sunday, March 18, at the Historical Society of Baltimore County, 9811 Van Buren Lane in Cockeysville.

The 300-member society is developing a list of remaining stations along the line. Some were owned by the railroad; others were not.

"Since the railroad left a half century ago, it's really amazing they're still standing. Some have been altered or changed, but the basic structure is still there," Fischer said.

For a station, the railroad would often use a local store. In Hydes, the store used as a station is still standing.

"It's a beautiful old structure. They put their station in the store and also had the post office there," Fischer said.

The railroad began as two railroads, one in Maryland and one in Pennsylvania, in the 1880s. The two merged in 1901, forming the Maryland and Pennsylvania.

The line ran along Falls Road in Baltimore and traveled through Towson, Loch Raven, Glen Arm and Baldwin, then through Harford County before ending in York, Pa.

"The thing about the Ma & Pa is that it was still operating steam engines in the 1950s from the early 1900s," Fischer said. "While it wasn't the most efficient thing, for rail fans it was heaven."

Fischer was born in Parkville (not a stop on the Ma & Pa) but always was interested in trains, he said. After his father moved to Glen Arm in the 1960s, Fischer read the definitive history of the Ma & Pa.

Although the Glen Arm station, built in 1909, had found another purpose by then, "having that connection really fueled my interest," he said. The building now houses a carryout restaurant.

The Ma & Pa ceased operations in Maryland in 1958, but kept running in Pennsylvania until 1985. The cost of upkeep and better road transportation brought its demise, Fischer said.

"Trucks were taking over and roads were getting better, so local railroads like that couldn't survive," he said.

Much of the railroad right-of-way is still intact and probably never will be developed because it follows streams and travels through what is now parkland, Fischer said.

"Railroads had to take a fairly easy route that wasn't too steep so they'd look for rivers and places were the grade wasn't too steep," he explained.

Twice a year, a group of rail fans drives to different spots and walks along the old rail bed. Fisher said 20 to 40 people might join the next walk, scheduled for April 21 in Red Lion, Pa.

"It's amazing, the interest in a small local railroad," he said.

For more information about the Ma & Pa, go to www.maparailroadhist.org.
 


Jim Dent
Oakland, NJ
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