Trains – October 2019

by E.F. Baldwin, still stands, overshadowed
by the highway bridge and looking forlorn.
(Baldwin designed numerous well-known
stations for the B&O, including Mount
Royal in Baltimore.)
Once we cross the bridge over the Key-
ser station and B&O’s West End Subdivision
— now CSX’s Mountain Subdivision — and
the North Branch of the Potomac, we reach
Maryland. Our highway and the railroad
parallel the meandering river the 20 miles
to Cumberland. Just before reaching the
city, we pass a quarter-mile from the West-
ern Maryland Scenic Railroad’s shops in the
old Western Maryland Railway’s yard in
Ridgeley, W.Va. The railroad maintains its
headquarters in the original Western Mary-
land station in downtown Cumberland,
sharing the 1913 building with the National
Park Service’s Chesapeake & Ohio Canal
National Historical Park offices.

Less than a mile and a half south of the

station, another large steam-era shop

remains in use as one of CSX’s major

running-repair facilities. Cumberland had

a strategic location on the B&O at the

junction of its main line with its route to

the West Virginia coal fields. The railroad

erected the current shop building here

right after World War I, when the railroad

also had two roundhouses next door; one

of those has disappeared, but 10 stalls of

the other and its renovated turntable still

serve the diesel shop, readily viewed from

public property. The freight yard extends

for more than 3 miles to the east.

PENNSYLVANIA

We cross the Mason-Dixon Line into

Pennsylvania and then the Pennsylvania

Turnpike, built in part on the right-of-way

of the stillborn South Penn Railroad. North

of the Turnpike, U.S. 220 joins Interstate

99. We stay on the old road, the William
    Penn Highway. Nearby, the East Broad
    Top’s headquarters and 19th-century shops
    in Orbisonia have slumbered in suspended
    animation since trains last ran in 2011.
    As we enter Claysburg, we can turn
    right on Church Street to visit the Everett
    Railroad’s small yard and its enginehouse,
    a metal building put up in 1988 that now
    houses the railroad’s beautiful little 2-6-0,
    used throughout the year on passenger ex-
    cursions. The Everett operates some of the
    Pennsylvania Railroad’s line that once con-
    nected Altoona and Cumberland, plus the
    branch up the hill to Roaring Spring and
    Martinsburg; it interchanges with Norfolk
    Southern in Hollidaysburg, 2 miles east of
    both old and new U.S. 220. In the 1950s,
    the Pennsy erected a new freight-car repair
    and assembly shop in Hollidaysburg,

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