Today I rode the Baltimore Light Rail

I've always wanted to ride the entire system and I finally did today. I have a few questions/observations. (I noticed there's no forum here for the Baltimore Light/Heavy Rails.)

Questions:

1. Was the light rail built from the ground up or was the track already in place? I read that the part in the city was built from old streetcar routes. On maps, I see the Timonium light rail listed as Northern Central Railroad. Did they just use the ROW?
2. As you go between Falls Road and North Avenue, there are a few feeder tracks that feed factories. They are still connected to the light rail tracks. Are they active at night after the light rail closes?
3. At North Avenue, I saw a large number of fuel cars and a Norfork Southern locomotive. These don't use the light rail tracks, do they?
4. At Mount Royal station, the light rail parallels a pair of tracks. On one trip, I saw the CSX Coke Express. I'm assuming this is the CSX main line through Baltimore.
5. Between Mount Royal and Cultural Center, there is a giant hole in the ground and a large structure built in it. It looks like the same rails that you see from Mount Royal travel under the structure. Was this an old passenger station?
6. Around Cherry Hill, the light rail parallels a set of three tracks that look like they are one trainload away from falling apart. They are overgrown, unsignaled except for non-functional B/O style signals but I think I know where they go, the car yards by the 895 tunnel. Are these tracks used by trains?
7. Why do they have blue signals that say "derail" on some of the abandoned sidings attached to the light rail? I mean I understand that it means don't go on me, and I read that blue signal means go no further under any circumstances, but why did they say "derail?"

I know I have a lot of questions but it was a very interesting trip. I def will be using it more often to visit my GF in South Baltimore (I live in Towson.) It's a shame the trains don't travel faster though; there are long, long stretches of straight road, there is good signaling and the rails use concrete ties.

I can't wait to see how they build the east-west light rail and how they overcome the problem of building a light rail underground and getting around the Howard Street Tunnel.

A few incomplete answers:

1. The light rail's right-of-way has a tangled history, dating in part to the early 1830s. Between North Ave. and the point where it crosses Warren Rd. in Cockeysville, it was built on the right-of-way of the Northern Central Ry., a PRR subsidiary that at one time was the Pennsy's principal link between Harrisburg, Baltimore, and the south. At that time, it was a heavy-duty, double-track mainline hosting the "Liberty Limited" among many other through trains, and a healthy commuter service. By the time light rail construction started it had degenerated to an industrial spur extending only as far north as Cockeysville.
   
   Between the Warren Road crossing and Beaver Dam Rd. station, it follows an ex-Penn Central/Conrail industrial spur originally built to servive the Hunt Valley Industrial Park (which is now mostly offices and warehousing rather than industry). North of Beaver Dam Rd. is all new construction.
   
   The Northern Central in turn was originally the Baltimore & Susquehanna RR, formed in 1829 (a year after the B&O) and completed to York, PA, in 1838. Until the double-tracking work started, it was possible to see lines of exposed 1830s-era stone-block track bed alongside what was then a single light rail track north of Timonium.
   
   South of Westport it uses parts of what were once the Baltimore & Annapolis Short Line (later Baltimore & Annapolis) and Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis, which were high-speed interurban lines. Interestingly, the section between Westport and Patapsco Ave., station had been abandoned in 1935, but the right-of-way (including an underpass under the B&O (CSX) Curtis Bay branch remained intact.
   
   For most of its length, Howard St. was occupied by streetcar tracks, although these had been considerably cut back by the late 1930s.
   
   Obviously, the line between North Ave. and Howard St. and between Camden Station and Westport is all new construction.
2. Both the northern and southern sections of the light rail line carried carload freight at night. On the south end, the Canton RR operated between the CSX interchange at Cliffords (north of Patapsco Ave. station) and a now-defunct printing plant adjacent to Cromwell station. (Canton's diesel was kept at Cromwell.) On the north end, Conrail (later NS) served several freight customers -- notably a vinegar plant at Cold Spring Lane, the large quarry operation at Texas (north of Timonium), and a utility storage yard off Warren Rd. in Cockeysville. Freight on the southern end ceased in the late 1990s, as I recall, and on the north end about a year ago when this section was shut down for the double-tracking work. Theoretically, it should have resumed by now, but at the MTA's behest, NS has filed to abandon the service.
   
   There were several other industries in the area around Woodberry station where the remnants of sidings still exist, but these were taken out before the light rail was on the scene. There are also several long-unused sidings in the Timonium-Cockeysville area. These are connected to the light rail but as far as I know they never handled any freight during the light rail era.
3. This is a bulk distribution terminal operated by NS, and has no connection with the light rail. It's accessed via a crossing with the light rail at about 29th St., where the light rail-NS connection is also located.
4. Yup, this is the CSX (ex-B&O) mainline between Baltimore and Philadelphia and also CSX's access to industries on the city's west side.
5. You're probably talking about the ex-B&O Mt. Royal Station, built in 1896 as a fashionable "uptown" station for the onetime Royal Blue Line passenger trains. It's now owned by the Maryland Institute, College of Art. You noticed, I hope, the well-preserved trainshed. At the south end of the station the CSX line enters its Howard St. tunnel, which is beneath the light rail line all the way to a point beyond Camden Station.
6. What you probably saw here are the so-called Cliffords interchange tracks between CSX and the light rail line which, as mentioned above, were used to interchange inbound paper traffic for Cromwell. The CSX line itself continues east from here to Curtis Bay, where there is a coal pier and several heavy industries.
7. Beats me.

Come to think of it, maybe a separate Baltimore page is justified.

yeah, baltimore does have alot of trackage. There should be a Baltimore RailFan forum at least.

Thank you so much, I was really curious about it and alot of it is hard to find.

How about the DelMarVa & DC Railfan forum? That may be useful to both of you...

Another alternative might be to expand the MARC-VRE forum to include Baltimore transit (both Metro and light rail) with the MARC-VRE and maybe even Washington Metro, making it a grand Washington-Baltimore metro area transit/commuter forum. Eventually that might also include the still-nebulous DC light rail projects. Or would the FRA prohibit mixing rapid transit and commuter rail forums?

Im question #7, just from the description, I think what you're seeing is the signs marking the derails on freight sidings. Derails are standard practice to protect against cars on sidings from entering a mainline, and are used frequently on industrial sidings. Given that this is a light rail line, a collision between a wayward freight car and an LRV would potentially be even worse than with standard FRA compatible passenger rail equipment; also, I believe that for the "time seperation" that the freight service operated under on the Balto. Light Rail, the FRA required all light rail and FRA railroad equipment to be seperated by derails at all times (i.e., during the day, all railroad equipment off active tracks, behind derails, and at night, before the NS or Canton could operate, all LRVs would have to be in yards and storage areas, and derails would be in place to seperate the yards from the main).

Obviously, the derails probably aren't necessary anymore, as I assume that these sidings would all be empty, but I doubt they're in any rush to pull them all off the tracks.

BaltOhio wrote:Another alternative might be to expand the MARC-VRE forum to include Baltimore transit (both Metro and light rail) with the MARC-VRE and maybe even Washington Metro, making it a grand Washington-Baltimore metro area transit/commuter forum. Eventually that might also include the still-nebulous DC light rail projects

There's already a forum for the Washington Metro, anyway.

Or would the FRA prohibit mixing rapid transit and commuter rail forums?

FRA's got no jurisdiction here e.g. the MBTA forum covers commuter rail, light rail, subways, even trackless trolleys and the "Silver Lie" to a degree...

Is Mt. Royal station open to the public since it's owned by MICA? It looks like a cool place to railfan.

gprimr1 wrote:Is Mt. Royal station open to the public since it's owned by MICA? It looks like a cool place to railfan.

I guess you could say it's somewhat open. The north end of the trainshed is accessible from both the Mt. Royal Ave. level and the station level via a sidewalk, but you're fenced off from the tracks. The building itself is generally open, I believe, since it's used for classrooms and other purposes, but the interior has been substantially altered.

A better trainwaching spot is on the light rail line's southbound Mt. Royal station platform. Here you can look right down on the CSX tracks with no significant obstructions. At the same time you can watch the performance of the Penn Station shuttle, which periodically scoots up the ramp from Penn Station, reverses direction, and scoots back.

I live in Baltimore but I'm not from Baltimore. I've noticed that people get offended when you suggest Baltimore is "DC."

That's why I suggested a different forum.

I'm not from Baltimore either, but have lived here 43 years, in DC 10 years, Cleveland 12 years, NY 10 years, and one other spot too dismal to mention. Of course, I should have suggested that any potential consolidated forum be titled "Baltimore-Washington metro area." First things first.

In truth, though, Baltimore transit by itself probably isn't newsy enough to warrant a full forum. Besides, our current state administration is anti-rail transit and is doing its best to make it even less newsy.