Western Maryland Railway - History

History

On May 27, 1852, the Maryland General Assembly granted a charter to the Baltimore, Carroll & Frederick Rail Road to build a line from Baltimore northwest through Westminster, west toward Hagerstown, Maryland. The name of the enterprise was soon changed to Western Maryland Rail Road (WM). The line was opened as far as Union Bridge in November 1862, and it was seized briefly by the Union army during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863. Construction resumed in 1868. The line reached Hagerstown in 1872 and was extended a few miles to a connection with the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal at Williamsport in 1873.

In 1881, WM leased a line north to Shippensburg, Pennsylvania, and in 1886 established a connection there with a predecessor of the Reading Company (RDG). Also in 1886, WM gained a branch north from Hanover to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania; that line was soon extended southwest from Gettysburg to meet WM's main line at Highfield, Maryland. The main line was extended from Williamsport and Big Pool, Maryland, and across the Potomac River to Cherry Run, West Virginia, where it connected with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O). B&O, WM, and RDG joined forces to operate a through freight route between Cumberland, Maryland and Allentown, Pennsylvania, via Harrisburg.

WM's stock was largely owned by the city of Baltimore; the city also held its mortgage bonds. By the turn of the century WM's debt to Baltimore was subatantial, and the city was seeking a buyer for the railroad. Bids were submitted in 1902. The Fuller Syndicate, the company representing George Gould, was the lowest bidder but guaranteed full payment of WM's debt, extension west to Cumberland, and creation of a major tidewater terminal at Baltimore. On May 7, 1902, the city accepted the Fuller Syndicate's offer. WM immediately built the marine terminal, Port Covington, and began construction westward along the Potomac (where all the good locations had been taken by the B&O, the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal and the National Road). The line reached Cumberland in 1906. There it met the Cumberland & Piedmont Railway, which with the West Virginia Central and Pittsburg Railway (WVC&P), another Gould railroad, formed a route southwest from Cumberland through Elkins to Durbin and Belington, West Virginia. In 1907, Gould acquired control of the George's Creek and Cumberland Railroad (GC&C), which had a line from Cumberland north through the Cumberland Narrows.

B&O and RDG had broken their traffic agreement with WM in 1902, with the result that coal from Gould's WVC&P bypassed the WM and went instead over trackage owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), which at the time controlled B&O. The rest of Gould's empire was in trouble as well, and in 1908 the WM entered receivership, as did the Wabash Pittsburgh Terminal Railway and the Wheeling and Lake Erie Railway. The Western Maryland Railway took over the WM at the beginning of 1910 and immediately began construction of an 86-mile (138 km) extension northwest from Cumberland to a connection with the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad at Connellsville, Pennsylvania.

When the Gould empire collapsed, John D. Rockefeller acquired control of the WM. Because the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) merger plan on 1921 grouped WM with B&O, B&O bought Rockefeller's WM interest in 1927 and soon increased its WM holdings to 43 percent. Frank Taplin, who controlled the Pittsburgh and West Virginia Railway (P&WV), protested B&O's action. The ICC charged B&O with violating antitrust laws — in its effort to carry out the ICC merger plan. PRR interests acquired the P&WV in 1929 and offered to purchase WM, but B&O refused to sell, eventually placing its WM holdings in a nonvoting trust.

In 1944, WM acquired the Cumberland and Pennsylvania Railroad, a short coal railroad out of Cumberland. WM began dieselization in 1949, starting with the eastern end of the system, farthest from the coalfields it served. Passenger service — which consisted of coach-only local trains — lasted barely long enough to be dieselized.

As merger plans formulated, WM could see its traffic disappear. The planned merger of the New York Central Railroad (NYC) and the PRR (the ill-fated Penn Central) could throw traffic from the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad (part of the NYC system) onto the PRR. The Norfolk and Western Railway (N&W) could easily reroute traffic from the P&WV onto N&W lines right to Hagerstown. WM decided to forsake independence and join the B&O-Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) — after all, B&O was almost half owner of WM. B&O and C&O applied to control WM, and the ICC approved their bid in 1967.

There was little evidence of the C&O-B&O control until 1973, when the Chessie System was incorporated to own C&O, B&O, and WM. In 1973, WM applied to abandon 125 miles of main line from Hancock, Maryland to Connellsville, Pennsylvania. WM's single track paralleled B&O's double-track line and had easier grades and better clearances, but the expense of maintaning the line and building connecting lines outweighed any savings that might result in lower operating costs. That same year, WM's Port Covington coal terminal was abandoned in favor of B&O's newer pier in Baltimore. Gradually, B&O absorbed WM's operations, and in late 1983, B&O officially merged the WM. The B&O itself merged with the C&O in 1987, which itself became part of CSX Transportation.