South of the Patuxent River bridge, in Prince George's County, we reach a location PRR called Arundel or "Del" for short; locals called it Hicks Mill. As AMTK 2002 crosses that bridge, the photographer is standing where the northeast leg of PRR's wye to serve Bowie Race Track was completed during November 1936.

This tour page proceeds generally south and southeast from here. Photos that look south and/or east (see View data) generally look toward the race track's location.

It was at that leg of the wye that a Race Track Special derailed on a snowy February 2, 1961, killing six people and injuring more than half the approximately 400 people aboard. The two model F7 / PRR EF15A engines rolled onto their side. The nearer one might be number 5893 per magnified view at left.

Link: Baltimore Sun report 1998

Wreckage was so twisted that it became unrecognizable as a passenger railcar.

A display (right) at the Bowie RR Museum quotes a witness, "People were thrown all around... glass was flying everywhere. Two or three seats back, a man was hanging out of the window and I think he was dead."

Link: Bowie RR Museum info

Newspaper accounts report the train had been traveling at 50 mph in the turnout rated at 15 mph. The PRR main line from the north descends at a 1% grade along the mile leading to the wye.

Link: 1961 wreck at this spot

The disused wye remained visible in aerial photos for more than 40 years.

AMTK 2000 passes the location of the 1961 derailment. Unable to hold this turn to the left, the derailing equipment wound up in the trees at center.

The southwest leg survives as this mound of earth that leads into the trees on the right. Older than the northeast leg, it dates to the early 1930s as part of a siding to serve Charles L. Ruffin's Massaponax Corporation sand and gravel company. It was also the first to be disused when PRR discontinued Race Track Specials from Washington in 1961. Specials from Baltimore and northeast continued.

PRR apparently scooped up adjacent soil, leaving behind low spots on either side of the mound where stagnant water now gathers.

WB&A provided special service to the race track via 4-car trains like this. This photo may have been snapped near White House Station, then outside downtown Washington, where full 4-car trains could be assembled without violating the city's 2-car limit.

A 1953 PRR schedule (at right courtesy collection of Frank A. Wrabel) shows a race-day train arriving at Bowie 2.5 hours after departing Philadelphia, with stops at Chester (PA), Wilmington (DE), Elkton (MD), Aberdeen and Baltimore. The trip from Baltimore took 35 minutes. From Penn Station, the Baltimore Special stopped at Edmondson Avenue and Frederick Road, arriving after 48 minutes. The non-stop trip aboard the Washington Special from Union Station took 35 minutes.

By 1971, the Baltimore Special had been merged into the Philadelphia Special, which required 3 hours and 11 minutes from Philadelphia. The round trip fare, with Bowie admission, was $13.25. Racegoers from New York would depart at 8 AM then change for the special at Philadelphia around 10 AM.

The northeast leg is preferred by the ATVers who churned up this stone ballast.

The two legs of the wye met here at Del Station, basically a shanty with a telephone. Since the line was not signalled, service relied on telephonic communication. The southwest leg of the wye is much more overgrown and can be identified here only by its shadow (left).

An 1878 Hopkins map shows this as the location of a steam-powered saw mill of John and Benjamin Hicks.

This track map shows the layout in schematic form. This tour is proceeding to the right.

Circa 1900 topographic maps illustrate most of the branch was built atop an old road that had crossed the B&P / PRR main line at grade on its way to Lemons Bridge.

When PRR first arrived here, Massaponax was scouring the area for stone and sand. The excavation pits left behind are now water-filled and complicate drainage to the Patuxent. Some past storm eroded the old right of way at this culvert. Crossing this spot on foot now during a damp month means slogging through mud, muck and mosquitoes.

Trail pavement begins southeast of high-tension power lines.

This 1938 aerial shows the full branch. At this time, the connection between PRR and the race track was only a couple years old.

The race track was caught off guard by WB&A's closure during August 1935. The Boston Iron & Metal Company had purchased WB&A leftovers and quickly begun dismantling the steel rails and bridges for scrap. With the racing season scheduled to begin in November, track owners managed to convince B&O to help. The solution included convincing the scrappers to delay their efforts, lowering the floor of the ex-WB&A Westport Tunnel and adding clearance under low bridges so B&O equipment would fit. Then, the newly-formed Baltimore & Annapolis leased B&O equipment and ran trains to Bowie... for just two weeks.

A longer-term solution took form during 1936 when PRR assumed service by switching trains at Odenton, Maryland from the PRR main onto the almost-parallel, ex-WB&A track for a 6-mile trip to the race track. PRR deemed that length of parallel track too expensive to acquire and maintain, hence rushed into service the shorter connection this tour page follows.

Concrete pads and walls survive along the route. Some drawings show tipples about here where cars were loaded with sand and gravel.

Those tipples are likely in the background left of this photo of Massaponax's operation from Gravel and Sand Deposits of Eastern Maryland by Nelson Horatio Darton. Those dark rectangles at this side of the tree line may be railcars and the pairs of light-color poles could be leftovers of WB&A's catenary. PRR's Race Track Special trains rolled past all this on their way to the track.

Drawings also depict a small yard in this vicinity, which may account for the width of the opening in the trees. It's possible that briefly during the 1930s the yard was served concurrently by PRR from the north and WB&A from the south.

Continuing south, we reach a rails-to-trails effort known as the WB&A Spur Trail that has paved the route.

Old track crossties can be found in many places along the trail, including a few extra long ones. Lengthier ties are employed at track switches.

The spur was active at photo time to connect the wye at upper left with the oval race track at bottom right. The dashed white line traces the Patuxent River. The white arrow points to where a bridge would open for pedestrian use in 2025.

This bridge across the Patuxent River opened in 2025 to connect the main WB&A Trail in Prince George's County with the portion in Anne Arundel County. The bridge is about one mile into the spur trail (from the parking area at the east end) and near the site of a 19th century bridge that spanned the river.

The trail on the Anne Arundel County side follows a new alignment, that is, one not inherited from WB&A. Its sharp curves confirm this was not a railroad route. This new, roundabout route adds about a mile to the WB&A Trail and is considerably steeper than WB&A's alignment. It relies on two horseshoe curves like this (right) to reduce the grade.

Link: trail info

At over 500 feet in length, this is Prince George's longest bridge that spans the Patuxent River. Additionally, from Laurel to the Chesapeake Bay, over 60 miles downstream, there are no other bridges designed for pedestrian use. The river forms the border between Prince George's and Anne Arundel Counties.

This is the first bridge between PG and AA Counties at a new location since the 1950s when B-W Parkway arrived. WB&A's disused route was briefly considered for repurposing into that parkway.

The pole at left tells us we are one mile from the spur trail's southeastern end. This tour heads in that direction but measures mileage from PRR's/Amtrak's main line that is a distance behind the photog. So, the Mile values shown here increase as they decrease on trail signs.

Trail signs are posted every quarter mile. The wording gives the impression this trail follows a WB&A Spur and not one of PRR. I do not know whether that is a wording coincidence or confirmation WB&A's spur indeed had reached this far north.

The (PRR's?) culvert for Bear Run was replaced with this trail bridge.

This is another candidate location for the uncertain northern reach of WB&A's spur to the gravel pits.

When looking south, the line/trail becomes as straight as the arrow in WB&A's herald.

Trees make this a colorful autumn walk.

At the quarter-mile post, paint substitutes for ties and rails. This photo predates the later paint scheme of white side stripes and center dashes.

My guess is modifying the wetlands left behind by the sand and gravel miners would have required too much paperwork, so the trail built a short causeway of sorts across the muddiest stretch. Drainage is poor here.

All of the trail is paved, and where it rises higher above the ponds, it gets a guardrail/fence.

We've reached the trail's start where the crossties are paint but the rails are real. The location, however, is not real railroad since the branch had instead continued straight through the clump of vegetation on the right, then onward to another wye. The embedded rails are farther apart than WB&A's standard gauge.