The Eastern Shore Railroad, Inc. was a Class III

short-line railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

that began operations in October 1981 on the former Virginia and Maryland Railroad line on the

Delmarva Peninsula The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula and proposed state on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore regions of Maryland and Virginia ...

. The line ran between

Pocomoke City, Maryland Pocomoke City, dubbed "the friendliest town on the Eastern Shore", is a city in Worcester County, Maryland, United States. Although renamed in a burst of civic enthusiasm in 1878, the city is regularly referred to by its inhabitants simply as P ...

, and

Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk ( ) is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia in the United States. Incorporated in 1705, it had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 census, making it the third-most populous city in Virginia after neighboring Virginia Be ...

, interchanging with the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad in the United States formed in 1982 with the merger of Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. With headquarters in Atlanta, the company operates 19,420 route miles (31 ...

at both ends. Delmarva had been previously served by the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Company (NYP&N) led by

William Lawrence Scott William Lawrence Scott (July 2, 1828 – September 19, 1891) was a Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Pennsylvania, a prominent railroad executive, as well as a prominent horse breeder and horse racer. Early life Wil ...

which ran south down the peninsula to a freight depot, terminal and harbor at the headland point at

Cape Charles, Virginia Cape Charles is a town / municipal corporation in Northampton County, Virginia, United States. The population was 1,009 as of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 Census. History Cape Charles, located close to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, on ...

, a town which it founded and laid out in 1883–84. A ferry barge system then operated crossing the lower

Chesapeake Bay The Chesapeake Bay ( ) is the largest estuary in the United States. The Bay is located in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region and is primarily separated from the Atlantic Ocean by the Delmarva Peninsula (including the parts: the ...

to the Norfolk piers. The NYP&N was later absorbed by the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad (reporting mark PRR), legal name The Pennsylvania Railroad Company also known as the "Pennsy", was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was named ...

, which dominated the eastern U.S. along with the

New York Central Railroad The New York Central Railroad was a railroad primarily operating in the Great Lakes and Mid-Atlantic regions of the United States. The railroad primarily connected greater New York and Boston in the east with Chicago and St. Louis in the Midw ...

and the

Baltimore and Ohio Railroad The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

in the first half of the 20th century. A

rail ferry A train ferry is a ship (ferry) designed to carry railway vehicles. Typically, one level of the ship is fitted with railway tracks, and the vessel has a door at the front and/or rear to give access to the wharves. In the United States, train ...

service was used to span the water route across the

between Cape Charles and Norfolk. The ferry service used two

barge Barge nowadays generally refers to a flat-bottomed inland waterway vessel which does not have its own means of mechanical propulsion. The first modern barges were pulled by tugs, but nowadays most are pushed by pusher boats, or other vessels ...

s (car floats) of 25 and 15 car capacity, moved by contracted

tug boat A tugboat or tug is a marine vessel that manoeuvres other vessels by pushing or pulling them, with direct contact or a tow line. These boats typically tug ships in circumstances where they cannot or should not move under their own power, suc ...

s. This car float operation has been in continuous service since April 1885, and is one of only two remaining in the United States (the other being

New York New Jersey Rail, LLC New York New Jersey Rail, LLC is a switching and terminal railroad that operates the only car float operation across Upper New York Bay between Jersey City, New Jersey and Brooklyn, New York. Since mid-November 2008, it has been owned by t ...

). The Eastern Shore Railroad was taken over in February 2006 by Cassatt Management, LLC., and was operated and renamed as the

Bay Coast Railroad The Bay Coast Railroad operated the former Eastern Shore Railroad line between Pocomoke City, Maryland, and Norfolk, Virginia. The railroad interchanged with the Delmarva Central Railroad in Pocomoke City and Norfolk Southern in Norfolk; the inte ...

. The Bay Coast Railroad operated the line until May 18, 2018. In June 2018, the

Delmarva Central Railroad The Delmarva Central Railroad is an American short-line railroad owned by Carload Express that operates of track on the Delmarva Peninsula in the states of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The railroad operates lines from Porter, Delaware to Ha ...

took over the portion between Pocomoke City and

Hallwood, Virginia Hallwood is a town in Accomack County, Virginia, Accomack County, Virginia, in the United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, 2010 census, the town population was 206. History Wessells Root Cellar was added to the National Register of His ...

where the remaining customers were located. Service on the Norfolk side was taken over by the

Buckingham Branch Railroad Buckingham Branch Railroad is a Class III railroad, Class III short-line railroad operating over 275 miles (443 km) of historic and strategic trackage in Central Virginia. Sharing overhead traffic with CSX and Amtrak, the company's headqu ...

. Image:ESHR2014.jpg, LLPX 2014, a leased

EMD GP38 The EMD GP38 is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by Electro-Motive Diesel, General Motors Electro-Motive Division between January 1966 and December 1971. The locomotive's Prime mover (locomotive), prime mover was an EMD 645 16-cyli ...

, was used for switching the ferry terminal in

Little Creek, Virginia Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...

. Image:ESHR8096.JPG, ESHR 8096, a GP10, named the "Cape Charles" was parked at the headquarters in Cape Charles, VA.

References

External links

Defunct Maryland railroads Defunct Virginia railroads Spin-offs of Conrail {{US-rail-transport-stub

See also

References

Further reading

External links