With help from paths made by dirt bikers, it was possible to wind your way down from the tracks to this 1835-era culvert. It's been shored up since with concrete (and spray paint), but someone has created a walkway to the entrance. Are people crazy enough to dirt bike through here? The opening is about 4 feet high.

This stream is unnamed on the ADC maps. A rule of thumb: unnamed streams on the ADC maps are usually spanned via culverts, and named streams are usually spanned via stone arched or steel bridges. An 1860 Martenet's map names this stream "Licking Run".

But the real surprise comes if you employ the wooden walkway to get close enough to the culvert to look inside: many of the granite blocks are recycled stone stringers! These had been used for the initial (circa 1830) track construction on the Old Main Line. I've marked with small circles some of the holes where the iron strap rail had been affixed to the heavy blocks.

In 1830 these blocks had been hewn by hand, and B&O wasn't one to waste all that effort. When the stringers proved unacceptable as a track bed on the OML, B&O pulled most of them up, and obviously hauled some here.

This is one of only two known bridges/culverts to have been built primarily with the recycled stringers, but there are likely others waiting to be discovered.

During 2007 the stringer culvert's concrete cap gave way. CSX deemed the remaining structure safe so merely tossed some erosion-reducing stone blocks down the embankment. Trees have since regrown in this area.

MARC 74 speeds commuters past Burnettes Spur. Though here the spur looks disused, railcars were seen on it during 2022 (left).

Per their web site, the Burnette company manufactures "technical polyurethane foams for the use in transportation, medical, acoustical, personal care, and other markets."

Rails embedded in the pavement attest to a former siding. Old aerial photos are of insufficient resolution to reveal when this siding was last active.

A motorcyclist pauses to watch CSX 6540 glide past, preceded by CSX 4310. Plans have existed for decades to build an overpass for Montevideo Road, one of the busiest grade crossings on the line.

CSX 7534 model C40-8 barrels southwest past dirty mounds of snow toward Montevideo Road. CSX later sold the unit to Maine Central.

Link: MEC 7534 in Pan Am paint

A run-in with a tree put an eye out, but CSX 997 tore off one of the tree's limbs to carry proudly as a souvenir. CSX 3051 trails.

Caboose 903905 and CSX 3411 meet.

Many cabooses have been repurposed as a shoving platform, a station for a crew member who checks the rails ahead are clear as the local consist behind him is pushed. In this case, a flatcar follows, itself sometimes used as a shoving platform.

The shoving was being done by CSX 6503 and CSX 2054, the latter rebuilt into model GP38-3 form by CSX's Huntington shop.

In multiple railroad references, I have seen this, umm, let's call it an alternate spelling of the grade crossing road's name. I'd guess some master document has it spelled Montiviedo. The other side of this box shows the more-common Montevideo spelling.

An 1878 map places a B&O station in the northeast quadrant of this grade crossing. A B&O list from 1889 calls it Wayman Grove Station.

All the milestones I've located so far are on the Anne Arundel county side of the tracks. This one is tucked away so deep in the brush it's easily missed. Since photo time, this taken-for-gran1te stone has been removed.

At roughly this location over on US Route 1 had stood the One-Spot Flea Killer factory with its dog-shaped building. The site, in the southwest quadrant of US 1 and Hicks Road, is now occupied by a Super 8 motel.

Link: One-Spot Flea Killer

Under a sky of puffy cumulus clouds, CSX 682 heads a westbound train of containers through Jessup on track 1. It was one of a handful of engines to be painted with not one but two lightning bolts at its number.

An 1870s map shows B&O's Pierceland / Hooversville Station within the northeast quadrant of this former grade crossing, about where the passenger waiting shack is on the right. The Jessup Road grade crossing was initially eliminated during 1942, and the bridge rebuilt during 1975.

Link: 1975

The waiting shacks are gone, but Jessup is still a MARC stop, the least-busy one in the MARC system. The station averaged fewer than 2 passengers boarding per week of 2019. MARC's single-level cars like this were built by Sumitomo/Nippon Sharyo during the early 1990s.

As of 2023, clearance at MD 175's / Jessup Road's bridge has not yet been expanded to permit passage of double stacks. The scene still looks much the same as in this 2000 photo except CSX has swapped out the CPL signals for their new counterparts, such as that at right. Every 3+ lamp CSX signal has at least one red illuminated for every possible signal indication.

Given the amount of effort CSX has expended since the mid-2000s to eradicate B&O's CPL signals, one might expect they'd use the opportunity to simultaneously convert to LEDs, but that did not happen, at least not here. Along the Penn Line, Amtrak has been changing signals from incandescent to LED. There is a downside to the LEDs though: they do not generate enough heat to melt snow, so are at risk of being obscured by a snowstorm.

Links: 1994, 2011

MARC's last remaining model GP40WH-2 engine in revenue service pushes through Jessup at 80 mph. This had been Conrail engine 3205. MARC 17 is along for the ride.

Link: MARC 68 pics

One of MARC's SC-44 units charges through Jessup.

The Jessup commuter station has parking room for about 50 cars but even on a weekday it goes underutilized. Signs of this style were erected at all MARC stations during the 2010s.

This pole line amd some concrete are all that remain of a former spur that brought coal to the prison at Jessup. The spur shows up first on 1907 USGS topo maps, and is visible in aerial photos into the 1960s after which it was removed when the prison shifted away from coal for heating. Perhaps during the early decades prisoners were also transported via train.

Mr. Carnegie, meet Mr. Illinois.

Two rails, from two different manufacturing plants, from two different years, become one via continuously welded rail, aka "ribbon rail".

Churning a cloud of dust behind, MARC engine 61 pushes this set of 3 commuter cars toward DC during an early autumn afternoon. To reduce the need for turning, MARC engines are designed for remote operation from the end passenger car, in this case MARC 7756

In the foreground is one of only two concrete whistle signs I've seen surviving on the Washington Branch.

Checking the site 14 years later finds new signals.

Too small to be worth showing is a concrete block on the right just beyond the signals, the last relic of a spur that brought coal to the prison at Jessup. The spur shows up first on 1907 USGS topo maps, and is visible in aerial photos into the 1960s after which it was removed when the prison shifted away from coal for heating. Perhaps during the early decades prisoners were also transported via train.

Despite heat-induced atmospheric distortion, with digital camera at max zoom in the past, we could look almost a half mile north back toward Jessup Station to find the old color position light signals. Since then, CSX has replaced all but a few CPLs.

The bridge in the distance carries MD 175 over the tracks.

The amber signal seen here means "Medium Approach Medium", that is, proceed at medium speed approaching the next signal at medium speed.

Reader Ralph Hough wrote:

"hey steve. i am a conductor for csx and i was looking at your website. very nice site i thought. i really enjoy learning the history of the b&o. one thing i need to bring to your attention is mile 7.2 picture (signals) the amber signal is 'approach' not 'medium approach medium'. i followed your link to mikes signal page and he has it wrong also. again, very nice website. i will be stopping back frequently. thanks...."

Ex-B&Oer Mike Blair added detail:

"Conductor Hough is quite correct that the one displayed in your picture is an approach signal and would require The engineer to immediately reduce to medium speed and approach the signal at Dorsey prepared to stop. ( !! UNLESS his train was greater than 7300 feet long ! In which case he would have to act quickly to stop at Montevideo Road to avoid blocking the roadway, since trains greater than that length will not fit between the road and Dorsey signal.)"

Links to illustrated descriptions of signals: Mike's B&O Signals Page, Todd's CPL Home Page

A little-known fact is during the 1880s B&O had its own telegraph company with wires that extended from Boston, Massachusetts to Galveston, Texas. Its slogan was "New Lines, Low Rates". B&O sold the company during 1887 to Western Union who continued to transmit telegrams until January 27, 2006.

Before the 2000s when CSX removed the disused utility poles lining their routes in the region, insulators by the thousands still adorned the tired poles. The Old Main Line was fitted with a high percentage of plastic insulators, but along the Washington Branch collector-favored glass insulators survived in an array of styles and colors.

Many people collect insulators and therefore know them much better than me. Trackside I saw fewer of the one at top than the others. Collectors prize insulators of certain colors and manufacturers. Some of those illustrated were made by Hemingray, perhaps the one at top by Brookfield. If anyone cares to ID those here I'll be happy to add the details.

Links: B&O telegram, insulator photos, insulator list

This B&O bridge over Dorsey Run is the only one I've found with both brick arch and brick interior walls. Its masonry appears more modern than that found in brick arch examples dating to the 1870s. I suspect brick was used to reline an original stone arch here, or this could be the last brick arch bridge built by B&O.

The stones in the foreground, near the base of the large tree, are evidence of an older bridge, one for the road that had been the adjacent prison's south entrance. B&O's 1917 Form 6 places Bridewell Station at this milepost.