Gettysburg Lincoln Railroad Station from Carlisle Street 2013

The Hanover Subdivision is a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sove ...

s of

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a state in the Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; and Delaware and the Atlantic Ocean to ...

and

Pennsylvania Pennsylvania (; ( Pennsylvania Dutch: )), officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a state spanning the Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes regions of the United States. It borders Delaware to its southeast, ...

. The line runs from

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, west to Hagerstown, Maryland, along several former

Western Maryland Railway The Western Maryland Railway was an American Class I railroad (1852–1983) which operated in Maryland, West Virginia, and Pennsylvania. It was primarily a coal hauling and freight railroad, with a small passenger train operation. The WM beca ...

(WM) lines. It meets the

Baltimore Terminal Subdivision The Baltimore Terminal Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of Maryland. The line runs from Baltimore to Halethorpe along the original Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) line, one of the old ...

at its east end, and the

Lurgan Subdivision The Lurgan Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia. The line runs from Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, south to Hagerstown, Maryland, and west to Cherr ...

heads both north and west from its west end.

History

Initial sections

The first section of the Hanover Branch was built between Porters, Pennsylvania, and

Hanover, Pennsylvania Hanover is a borough in York County, Pennsylvania, southwest of York and north-northwest of Baltimore, Maryland and is north of the Mason-Dixon line. The town is situated in a productive agricultural region. The population was 16,429 at the ...

, opened in 1852 as part of the

Hanover Branch Railroad The Hanover Branch Railroad Company was a railroad that operated in Pennsylvania in the mid-19th century. The company was incorporated on March 16, 1847, and began operating trains in 1852. It represents the oldest portion of the Western Maryland R ...

.Poor, Henry V. (1860)
"History of the Railroads and Canals of the United States."
(New York: John H. Schultz and Co., 1860.) p. 443. The

Gettysburg Railroad The Gettysburg Railroad was a railway line in Pennsylvania that operated from 1858 to 1870 over the 17-mile (27 km) main line from the terminus in Gettysburg to the 1849 Hanover Junction. After becoming the Susquehanna, Gettysburg & Poto ...

opened a section between Hanover and

Gettysburg, Pennsylvania Gettysburg (; non-locally ) is a borough and the county seat of Adams County in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania. The Battle of Gettysburg (1863) and President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address are named for this town. Gettysburg is home to th ...

, in 1858. The WM initially built from the end of the

Northern Central Railway The Northern Central Railway (NCRY) was a Class I Railroad connecting Baltimore, Maryland with Sunbury, Pennsylvania, along the Susquehanna River. Completed in 1858, the line came under the control of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) in 1861, whe ...

's Green Spring Branch at Owings Mills, Maryland to Hagerstown. Construction began in 1857. The line reached

Westminster Westminster is an area of Central London, part of the wider City of Westminster. The area, which extends from the River Thames to Oxford Street, has many visitor attractions and historic landmarks, including the Palace of Westminster, B ...

in 1861 and Hagerstown in 1872. In 1873 the WM built its own line from Owings Mills to Fulton Junction in Baltimore. The WM designated the Baltimore-Hagerstown line as its East Subdivision.

Connections and acquisitions

The

Bachman Valley Railroad The Bachman Valley Railroad (BV) was a railroad that operated in Pennsylvania and Maryland, United States, in the 19th century. The 13 mile (21 km) line ran from Valley Junction, Pennsylvania (5.5 mi (8.9 km) east of Hanover) to Ebb ...

built a line from Valley Junction (1.25 mi east of Porters) south to the Maryland state line in 1872, and the Baltimore and Hanover Railroad continued the line south to Emory Grove, MD, connecting with the WM in 1879. In 1886 the WM acquired control of the line from Emory Grove to Hanover. It also took control of the Gettysburg Railroad. The

Hanover Junction, Hanover and Gettysburg Railroad The Hanover Junction, Hanover and Gettysburg Railroad was a railroad line in Pennsylvania in the 19th century. The 38 mile (61 km) main line ran from Orrtanna to Hanover Junction, where it connected with the Northern Central Railway (a su ...

had extended the line from Gettysburg west to Orrtanna, Pennsylvania, in 1885, and the

Baltimore and Harrisburg Railway The Baltimore and Harrisburg Railway was a railroad that operated in Maryland and Pennsylvania in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The 59 miles (95 km) main line ran from Emory Grove, Maryland to Orrtanna, Pennsylvania, with a 6 miles (9. ...

opened the rest of the line from Orrtanna west to Highfield in 1889, where it connected with the existing East Subdivision. The Emory Grove-Gettysburg-Highfield route became the WM's Hanover Subdivision. In addition to servicing industries and cities in Pennsylvania, the Hanover Sub provided an alternate route between Baltimore and Hagerstown, although it was 23 miles (37 km) longer than the East Sub. The WM built a marine terminal at Port Covington in Baltimore in 1904, and built a new connecting line from the East Sub to the terminal. The 5.3 mile (8.5 km) line ran from

Walbrook Walbrook is a City ward and a minor street in its vicinity. The ward is named after a river of the same name. The ward of Walbrook contains two of the City's most notable landmarks: the Bank of England and the Mansion House. The street runs ...

Junction, west of Fulton, to Port Covington, and was designed as the WM's Tide Subdivision.

Consolidation

In 1968 the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) received government approval to jointly control the Western Maryland Railway. In 1973, as part of the Chessie System, Western Maryland ownership went to C&O and it was operated by the B&O. The B&O itself merged with the C&O in 1987, which itself became part of CSX Transportation in that year. CSX Transportation
"Our Evolution and History."
Interactive timeline. Accessed 2012-12-02. Port Covington declined in the 1970s as traffic was shifted to nearby Chessie (formerly B&O) facilities, and the terminal was completely closed by 1988. CSX consolidated operations across the old WM subdivisions. The present CSX Hanover Subdivision consists of the old WM Hanover Sub (Highfield-Emory Grove), and portions of the East Sub (Hagerstown-Highfield and Emory Grove-Walbrook) and Tide Sub (Walbrook-Mt. Winans Yard in Baltimore). (CSX sold the remainder of the East Sub, from Emory Grove to Highfield, to the Maryland Midland Railway in the 1980s.)

References

{{Reflist

External links