Another juice train powers through the relatively undeveloped area at mile 20 (20 miles from Baltimore). The cut here opened springs, hence the trackside stream.

The Washington Branch's first electrically-powered signals were of the semaphore variety, such as this one labelled E194. I presume E is for eastbound, and 194 represents mile 19, adjacent to utility post 40. With 40 posts to the mile, this puts the location near mile 20, and indeed milestone 20 appears to stand in the foreground.

Across from the semaphore is its control box, or a drain. Whatever it was, CSX removed it, and others like it, during the early 2000s. A fence of some sort between the box and milestone appears to mark the boundary of neatly maintained ballast.

The hillside cut depicted here is the most significant of the Branch, and is now overgrown with trees.

The control box or drain across the tracks in the 1931 photo is no longer present. I believe it still had been extant during a 2003 visit but I neglected to photo it. Some time after 1931, milestone 20 was moved to a spot near this semaphore base.

Next, we reach Laurel Park racetrack, as depicted by this low-resolution aerial dating to 1938. Ignore the thick black lines as they represent gaps between images, and county borders where, unfortunately for our purposes, the railroad runs.

B&O had three short sidings in this vicinity. The longest one (the one that wandered to the south) may have served a quarry. Though it appears on topographic maps from 1905 to 1945, there is no evidence of it in this aerial. Site visits similarly turned up no surviving artifacts.

The shorter siding to the north is, however, visible on this 1938 aerial. It had crossed Whiskey Bottom Road to reach industry on the north side of that road. Evidence of the siding remains today in the form of grading.

The westernmost of the sidings ran parallel to the main line, and likely carried supplies to the track, perhaps horses as well. It survives as a flat graded area near milestone 21.

Sources put Laurel Speedway, a wooden race track for automobiles and bicycles, in the vicinity of the intersection of MD 198 and MD 197, a location at the lower left corner of this aerial. A Sun newspaper account reports B&O built a spur to serve it, but I can't pick it out on this aerial or any topo map. In any case, the Speedway was short lived.

Links: quarry 1907, 1925 pic, 1925, biker 1925, bike race 1925

This curve between Savage and Laurel is one of the most severe on the relatively straight Washington Branch. Per the aerial photo above, in this vicinity various B&O spurs/sidings climbed upward out of the cut out on both left and right.

Whiskey Bottom Road's bridge dates from 1990, and the concrete slabs in the foreground are evidence of a prior bridge. A B&O list from 1889 puts Mallory's Station here.

Reader Bill Hebb wrote to say:

"In regards to the type of bridge at Whiskey Bottom Road over the Washington main, it was never a grade crossing. Prior to the current bridge, there was in the fifties and sixties a wood bottom bridge, improved around the early seventies with a macadam base and the wood made a tremendous racket when the horse vans crossed it.

"I trained horses at Laurel Race track from the mid sixties to the early eighties and crossed that bridge every day. The picture you show seems like a tremendous improvement, it used to be a rough decline from the road down to the bridge, than across the bridge and then a 30% decline of about ten feet to get to the level the back stable gate / entrance of LRC."

Link: ~1960

A statue of famous Maryland thoroughbred Billy Barton welcomes visitors to Laurel Park Racetrack. The disused stairs behind the horse's nose are relics of the racetrack's former life as host of the Laurel Four County Fair. They lead up to what had been long train platforms.

One concrete pedestrian underpass and stairway is stamped 1911, while this one reflects a revision during 1953. Aerial photos suggest that from about 1910 into the 1970s a total of four tracks existed here, the inner two (left in this view) for through trains, plus one outer track on each side for trains stopping at Laurel Park to discharge or pick up passengers. Though the outer track's location on the right was overgrown at photo time, it might be revived for MARC commuter trains as part of the redevelopment that began here during 2019.

Link: 1950s

Above the underpasses, MARC (commuter) trains stop at the racetrack's tiny station. The 1911 date on this staircase puts its origin at the time of the first horse race here. Not seen behind me is the disused staircase that dates to 1953.

Within the brightened box at bottom right you might be able to discern the face of a groundhog who calls this spot home. He dutifully watched me the entire time I was snapping photos.

Above the disused platform hangs a bishop's crook style lamp. I suspect this is still the original that was installed around 1910. It hangs over the dismantled outer track on the southeast side of the main tracks.

Despite being less than a half mile from the station in downtown Laurel, the tiny Laurel Racetrack Station still sees MARC train service largely thanks to the proximity of the racetrack. Yes, that wooden platform is the "station". Development on the west side of the tracks (left) may produce a new station here, perhaps one that takes over as Laurel's primary RR station. Presently, few commuters use this station since it is a MARC flag stop.

That 65 sign means 65 mph, one of the higher posted speed limits along CSX trackage in the region.

Links: 1914, ~1930

The area northwest of the station had never been built upon, instead it was held for fair purposes and overflow parking.

Link: ~1960

That undeveloped expanse changed during the early 2020s, as Paddock Pointe began filling the area.

The development's initial name of Laurel Park Station was de-emphasized after PG county feared the intent was to move MARC rail service away from Laurel's historic B&O station. The artist's concept shown in the main photo includes what appear to be new covered platforms at the existing Laurel Racetrack station, as well as a pedestrian walkway over the tracks. A reasonable compromise might be a trackside walkway between the Pointe and historic Laurel Station; the two are only 2500 feet apart, in fact the development can be seen through trackside trees from Laurel Station's platform, as at left.

Link: development

With Paddock Pointe under construction in the background, CSX 339 rolls west past B&O milestone 21 (lower left). The milestone is about 500 feet southwest of where it should be, perhaps displaced when an outer track for Laurel fairgrounds was added around 1910. (A distracting sign in the foreground has been edited out of this image.)

Link: 1965

PW advises a passenger station is ahead, and to sound the horn (whistle).

The 21 is a mile marker.

Reader Charlie Wingate said, of the D sign:

"It is fallout from the MARC accident in Silver Spring, and tells push-pull trains to approach the next signal (assumed to be absolute) at medium speed."

Just past the bend is the downtown Laurel station.

Another bridge can be found spanning the Patuxent River (not to be confused with the Little Patuxent River) at Laurel. This bridge is a short distance west of the racetrack station and east of the downtown Laurel station.

Originally there was a single arch stone bridge here, but it was removed courtesy a flood in 1863. Probably one arch was not enough to handle the river, which is reasonably substantial at this point. The arch was replaced with a Bollman Bridge during 1864, followed in 1910 by the plain one you see here.

Not seen is the bicycle rider who came around a blind corner at high speed and nearly ran me down. The prior photo from this batch managed to include him in the image, and shows the surprised look on his face when he was just a few feet from barrelling into me. I knew railfanning could be dangerous, but not due to bicyclists!

Trivia: this spot is the southernmost point of Howard County.

This is the opposite view as a CSX freight speeds past on top, and a car bumps through the potholes on the old dirt road below. Many of these structures have been allowed to rust because to a certain extent rust prevents more rust. Since photo time the road has been paved.

A bridge known as the Race Track Bridge had spanned the river behind the photog prior to Agnes floods. It is visible at the lower-left corner of the linked aerial photo.

Links: 1955, ~1930

A volunteer sunflower would rather watch the evening's rail traffic than look at the sun here at the Main Street bridge. This is the only single lane underpass along the Washington Branch.

Steel beams like this did not exist when the line was built, so there might have been a stone arch here originally. I suspect the steel is contemporary with that of the other bridges nearby (circa 1910) and with trackwork to support the then-new Fairgrounds.

Laurel's Main Street is seen here passing underneath the Washington Branch. The traffic light controls access to the single-lane underpass. On the right at photo time, the last vestiges of a small freight yard/siding were being transformed into commuter parking.

Behind is Laurel Station, still an active commuter stop. The text on the marker reads:

LAUREL RAILROAD DEPOT - Built by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in 1884, this "American Queen Anne" structure continues in daily use. The architect Francis H. Baldwin also designed the rear wing of the State House in Annapolis. This building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1972.

Link: 1982

Passenger trains have been stopping at Laurel since 1835. An 1878 Hopkins map places the prior B&O station building on the other (southeast) side of the tracks.

Link: source photo

At photo time, B&O was part of Chessie System, itself one step from CSX, and Maryland was supplying B&O with rolling stock.

The photo captures Sperry Rail Services unit 143 at Laurel. Such cars are used to inspect the rails. An older car sits at right on what had been a local freight siding. That siding was removed during the 1990s.

Links: LoC source photo. 1980s

a color view of Baldwin's gem

The station's interior retains much of its original charm.

In this region, there is no older railroad station building that still fulfills its original purpose of serving train passengers. Camden Station in Baltimore is older, but the station building is no longer used by/for passengers.

Carefully placed windows at Laurel's platform let waiting passengers spy approaching trains so on cold days they can remain huddled inside until boarding time.

Links: ~1912, tickets 1887, 1926, 1983

Maryland Area Regional Commuters exit the last eastbound train of a midsummer's evening. Automobile parking took the place of a small rail yard during the 1990s.

Though competition from automobiles meant that by the 1970s B&O could no longer offer that passenger rail profitably, the state of Maryland stepped in, first with financial subsidies, and later by gradually taking on the job via what was named MARC (MAryland Rail Commuter, later Maryland Area Regional Commuuter).

Link: 1961

CSX and MARC share the line: a view of the lead unit, MARC 63, as it pulls out of the station.

Though MARC-labelled equipment would arrive in 1981, CSX would continue to be involved in operations until 2013. As the region's population has grown, and new stations have been opened, MARC ridership has increased.

COVID not only temporarily chased commuters from the trains, but also from the roads. The latter meant less traffic, and thus even less reason to ride MARC. This weekday mid-afternoon photo finds Laurel's normally jammed commuter parking to be less than 5% full.

under puffy clouds of a late summer day

during a mild spring night

Link: 1978

Does Amtrak serve Laurel? No, old habits die hard.

This discarded Amtrak ticket stub was blowing around the Laurel station platform. It looks to be from an Amtrak passenger who connected via MARC from Washington, DC to Laurel (and paid $40 for the privilege, much higher than normal MARC rates).

But note who Amtrak lists as the carrier: BO. The last time B&O carried passengers along this route on its own was 1973! Since that time, the State of Maryland gradually assumed responsibilities, and later contracted them out. Uniformed B&O employees were replaced by those of MARC in 1984.

Laurel's platform was getting a makeover when CSX 5233 rolled past on its maiden voyage after delivery. CSX rushed this GEVO (GE Evolution) locomotive model ES44DC into service before painting over its primer gray. The photo of sibling 5234 (right) snapped seconds earlier has a clearer view since it looks away from the bright sky. These are the first known photos of the pair.

Laurel received new platforms again 18 years later. "Stand behind the yellow line" has new meaning since now every other slat has a yellow strip attached to it, as seen at lower left. I'm glad I don't have to shovel snow across all those strips. They are already buckling upward in places to become trip hazards. I hope they are removed before someone is injured.

Eastbound CSX 3432 was decelerating loaded autoracks into Jessup Auto Terminal. It was followed closely by units 5403 and 586.

Link: 1920