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Current Railroads
Vintage Railroads
Museums
Stations and Depots
Yards
Noteworthy Structures

Let's start with the local railroads available today for shooting:

CSX - took over the Baltimore and Ohio RR around these parts, which gobbled up the Western Maryland.
Norfolk Southern - formerly Conrail / Penn Central / and the Pennsylvania RR .
Amtrak.
The Canton RR, still kickin, altho not as neat to shoot as it was BT (before tunnel).
The Patapsco and Back Rivers RR, at the Beth Steel plant in Sparrows Point, is still kickin too, but not like it used to.
The Maryland Midland (gets as close as Reisterstown - based in Union Bridge).

Railroads from another era..... a few visible remains exist here and there
These are the railroads that made Baltimore what it is today, gone, but not forgotten:

The Baltimore and Annapolis RR (got swallowed up with that new light rail contraption).
The Baltimore and Ohio RR - became CSX.
The Baltimore and Susquehanna RR - became the Northern Central - 2nd RR in Baltimore.
The Maryland and Pennsylvania RR.
The Northern Central - became part of the PRR.
The Pennsylvania RR - became the Penn Central, then Amtrak and Conrail, then NS on the freight side.
The Western Maryland - parts went to CSX, some went to the Maryland Midland.

Museums anyone?

The Baltimore Streetcar Museum - just north of Penn Station, is the only "downtown" streetcar museum in the U.S.
The B&O Tranportation Museum - is to the west of Harborplace.
The B&O Station Museum - is out in Ellicott City (~35min from downtown).
The National Capitol Trolley Museum - is in Wheaton, about an hour away, nice rural setting.
The Gaithersburg Railroad Museum - is northwest of DC off I-270 (~60-75min from downtown).
The Smithsonian in DC - altho not primarily railroads, they do an excellent job with the stuff they have (~60min).
The Western Maryland Historical Society - in Union Bridge, is well worth the trip (again, ~60min from downtown).

Stations, depots, whatever you want to call them.
 Active stations in currently use:

For Amtrak:
     Penn Station
     BWI Airport

MARC's Penn Line (from north to south):
     Perryville
     Aberdeen
     Edgewood
     Martin State Airport
     Penn Station
     West Baltimore
     Halethorpe
     BWI Airport
     Odenton
     Bowie State
     Seabrook
     New Carrolton
     DC's Union Station

MARC's Camden Line (north to south):
     Camden Station
     St Denis - MARC Camden Line
     Dorsey
     Jessup
     Savage
     Laurel Park
     Laurel
     Muirkirk
     Greenbelt
     College Park
     Riverdale
     DC's Union Station

Stations on the Brunswick line are covered in my Central Maryland Railfan Guide homepage.

There are numerous other stations around:
     Camden Station, the original station, is located adjacent to the MARC/light rail stop
     Mt. Royal in Baltimore - across from the light rail stop
     Aberdeen (B&O)
     Falls Rd (PRR/NC/Greenspring Branch) *
     Forest Hill (Belair)(M&Pa)
     Glyndon (WM)
     Lake Ave (M&Pa) *
     Lutherville (PRR/NC) *
     Maple Rd (B&A)
     Monkton (PRR/NC)
     President St (NC)
     Riderwood (PRR/NC) *
     Stemmers Run (PRR)
 (* are private homes)

Hey, buddy, can you find me a yard?

CSX has most of them in the Baltimore area, they got em by the bagfull:
     Penn-Mary - it's on the eastside.
     Bayview - also on the eastside.
     Curtis Bay - on the south side of town, car shop at north end.
     Seawall - small yard adjacent to Curtis Bay yard.
     Riverside - just to the south of the downtown area, includes diesel storage and maintenance facility,
          (MARC diesels live and get worked on here too).
     Laurel - down in Annapolis Junction (not very busy most of the time).
     Winans, a small but sometimes busy (in the am) yard west of town.
     Locust Point, to the east of Riverside, services the port.

Grays yard in Sparrows Point is for the PBR, CSX, and NS.

Conrail, scuze me, Norfolk Southern has a couple:
     A yard named Bayview - just like CSX and adjacent to it.
     Canton, adjacent to CSX's Penn-Mary on the eastside.
     The Flexi-flo yard, on the far side of the North Avenue light rail shops, you can't get in there tho.

And let's not forget some additional noteworthy structures:

Thomas Viaduct in Elkridge on the B&O mainline - it's the oldest stone arch bridge in the U.S.
Carroll Viaduct, it's near the B&O RR Museum.
Howard St Tunnel for the CSX.
B&P Tunnel for the Amtrak NE corridor.
The Downtown Athletic Club off I83 used to be the Northern Central engine shed.
The Power Plant on Pratt St at Harborplace used to power the streetcars.

If you have any comments, contributions, addition, questions, whatever.......... https://railroadsignals.us/contact.htm


Disclaimers:

I love trains, and I love signals.  I am not an expert.  I do these pages because I love spending my time doing them - although I do a reasonable amount of research to make sure the information presented is accurate! :-)  :-)

Please Note:  Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them.  For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.

If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct.  Once in a while, an error may creep in, oooooooops, oh well! :-)

My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning.  Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or disoriented.  Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost!  I belong to AAA, which allows you to get local maps for free when you visit the local branches.  ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the railroads on them.  If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads.  Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.

BTW, floobydust is a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data book, and means miscellaneous and/or other stuff.

Pictures and additional information is always needed if anyone feels inclined to take 'em, send 'em, and share 'em, or if you have something to add or correct.... credit is always given! BE NICE!!! Contact info is here

Beware: If used as a source, ANYTHING from Wikipedia must be treated as being possibly being inaccurate, wrong, or not true.

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Last Modified: 02-Mar-2017