The Eastern Shore Railroad, Inc. (reporting mark ESHR) was a Class III short-line railroad that began operations in October 1981 on the 96 mile former Virginia and Maryland Railroad line on the Delmarva Peninsula. The line connected Pocomoke City, Maryland, to Norfolk, Virginia, interchanging with Norfolk Southern Railway at both ends.
A rail ferry service was used to span the 26 mile water route across the Chesapeake Bay between Cape Charles, Virginia and Norfolk. Tug boats were contracted to move the two barges (car floats) of 25 and 15 car capacity. This particular car float operation has been in continuous service since April 1885, and is one of only two remaining in the United States (the other being New York New Jersey Rail, LLC).
The Eastern Shore railroad was taken over in February 2006 by Cassatt Management, LLC., and is now operated as the Bay Coast Railroad.
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LLPX 2014, an EMD GP38 is used for switching the ferry terminal in Little Creek, Virginia.
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ESHR 8096, a GP10, named the "Cape Charles" is parked at the headquarters in Cape Charles, VA.
Famous quotes containing the words eastern shore, eastern, shore and/or railroad:
“All the morning we had heard the sea roar on the eastern shore, which was several miles distant.... It was a very inspiriting sound to walk by, filling the whole air, that of the sea dashing against the land, heard several miles inland. Instead of having a dog to growl before your door, to have an Atlantic Ocean to growl for a whole Cape!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Now Morn her rosy steps in th’ eastern clime
Advancing, sowed the earth with orient pearl.”
—John Milton (1608–1674)
“Late in the afternoon we passed a man on the shore fishing with a long birch pole.... The characteristics and pursuits of various ages and races of men are always existing in epitome in every neighborhood. The pleasures of my earliest youth have become the inheritance of other men. This man is still a fisher, and belongs to an era in which I myself have lived.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Though the railroad and the telegraph have been established on the shores of Maine, the Indian still looks out from her interior mountains over all these to the sea.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)