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In General


Location / Name:
Dorsey MD, Anne Arundel County

What's Here:
the Dorsey MARC commuter station

Data:
GPS Coordinates: 39.180917, -76.745768
Phone A/C: 410
ZIP: 21075

Access by train/transit:
MARC Commuter trains

The Scoop:

Not a whole heck of a lot here in Dorsey to lure you in, except for pictures of the Dorsey station and the trains coming through.  However, within a few minutes of driving, you have the St Denis, Savage, and Jessup stations.

Note: The Dorsey station parking lot is only accessible by car from MD RT100!  There is no way to "get in" from the "local" roads immediately surrounding the station.

And while you are in the Savage area, you have several bridges of notoriety, the best known of which is the last surviving example of a Bollman Truss Bridge.

For the signal fan, this area was predominated by CPL signals, but as of the summer of 2012, they were all replaced by color light signals :-(  There were a bunch that are easy to photograph on the south (or west) side of the station platforms at Jessup and Dorsey, and the north end of Savage.  The signal locations are still the same, just not as nice to frame up with a train.

Reminder:  following the B&O tradition, all directions on the B&O are either eastbound or westbound, at least here in the Baltimore area.  So, here on this map, a westbound freight is going south from Philly to DC, and an eastbound freight is actually going north.

Also in Jessup are a couple of industrial businesses with older first and second generation diesels as shown on the map.

If you in the mood for some great food at reasonable prices, you have the Timbuktu restaurant at the nearby Coca Cola Dr -- they are known for their crab cakes, and I recently attended a retirement party with about 40 people, and probably 35 of them had the crab cakes!

Acknowledgements:
Denver Todd
Aerials from Bing Maps (of days yore, when they were better)

Websites and other additional information sources of interest for the area:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annapolis_and_Elk_Ridge_Railroad


Map


The above map is available here as a PDF


MARC's Camden Line Schedule




 

 


  MARC's Dorsey Station




The Dorsey station, looking south.  Look hard and you can just see the CPL's off the end of the platforms.  These signals are for the crossovers just south of here.





         
NB 7:24 -- Train #840

           
SB 7:40 -- Train #849

           
NB 7:49 -- Train #842

       
SB Freight around 8am, on the last pix on the right, you can see the NB signals, new and old

             
The above set was taken on March 17th, 2005, pretty early in the morn.



Signals


  NB/SB Signals just north of Dorsey Station

See the aerial shot of Dorsey Station for their locations.

 


  SB Signals at Dorsey Station and the north end of the crossover

One of the easiest set of signals to get pictures of in the Baltimore area!  When I was here in late July 2011, they were getting ready to replace the CPL's, and the signal on "left/NB" track was out of service, never lighting up as trains approached.

The bottom set of pictures is from March 17th, 2005, way before the changeover started.

             

     

         


  NB Signals at the south end of the Dorsey crossover







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New format 10/26/23: Please check out my disclaimer page for my standard dribble and contact info here

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