History
The initial route of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) followed the Patapsco River valley west out of Baltimore, with the first section (to what is now Ellicott City, Maryland) opening for service in 1830. The line left the valley to cross Parr's Ridge, which, after an abortive attempt to use a system of inclined planes, was crossed via a more round-about routing through Mount Airy. It continued west to Harper's Ferry, West Virginia, passing south of Frederick on the way. This line was the only route west out of Baltimore until the Metropolitan Branch was constructed from Washington, DC to Point of Rocks in the 1870s. The section of the original route from Relay (where the Washington Branch began) to Point of Rocks became known as the "Old Main Line" (or "OML" for short) as it was relegated to secondary status, and continues to known as the Old Main Line Subdivision in CSX timetables.
Read more about this topic: Old Main Line Subdivision
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“This above all makes history useful and desirable: it unfolds before our eyes a glorious record of exemplary actions.”
—Titus Livius (Livy)
“History has neither the venerableness of antiquity, nor the freshness of the modern. It does as if it would go to the beginning of things, which natural history might with reason assume to do; but consider the Universal History, and then tell us,—when did burdock and plantain sprout first?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The history of every country begins in the heart of a man or a woman.”
—Willa Cather (1876–1947)