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
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The best history is but like the art of Rembrandt; it casts a vivid light on certain selected causes, on those which were best and greatest; it leaves all the rest in shadow and unseen.”
—Walter Bagehot (1826–1877)
“Literary works cannot be taken over like factories, or literary forms of expression like industrial methods. Realist writing, of which history offers many widely varying examples, is likewise conditioned by the question of how, when and for what class it is made use of.”
—Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956)
“A country grows in history not only because of the heroism of its troops on the field of battle, it grows also when it turns to justice and to right for the conservation of its interests.”
—Aristide Briand (1862–1932)