The Patapsco and Back Rivers Railroad was a Class III

switching and terminal railroad A switching and terminal railroad is a freight railroad company whose primary purpose is to perform local switching services or to own and operate a terminal facility. Switching is a type of operation done within the limits of a yard. It genera ...

, operating in

Baltimore County Baltimore County ( , locally: or ) is the third-most populous county in the U.S. state of Maryland and is part of the Baltimore metropolitan area. Baltimore County (which partially surrounds, though does not include, the independent City of ...

. Owned for the majority of its existence by the

Bethlehem Steel Corporation The Bethlehem Steel Corporation was an American steelmaking company headquartered in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. For most of the 20th century, it was one of the world's largest steel producing and shipbuilding companies. At the height of its succ ...

, the railroad primarily served Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point Terminal area. MCM Management Corporation purchased the PBR, through their purchase of RG Steel corporation, and renamed the railroad the Baltimore Industrial Railroad in 2012. RG Steel, LLC

History

Built as the standard gauge Baltimore & Sparrows Point Railroad Co., the first track was constructed from Colgate Creek to Penwood Park in Sparrows Point, a distance of in 1889. The Patapsco & Back Rivers Railroad, was incorporated by the Bethlehem Steel Corporation in 1916 to perform switching operations around their expanding steel mill and shipbuilding operations at Sparrows Point. The railroad takes its name from the rivers surrounding the point. The PBR interchanged with 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 ...

at a location known as Gray's Station. This yard continued to be its connection through the years with the Pennsylvania's successors

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American Railroad classes, class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania Railroad ...

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busin ...

, and finally

CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

and NS. The B&O and

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 ...

also ran

car float A railroad car float or rail barge is a specialised form of lighter with railway tracks mounted on its deck used to move rolling stock across water obstacles, or to locations they could not otherwise go. An unpowered barge, it is towed by a tugb ...

s of raw materials from their ports in the

Baltimore Harbor Helen Delich Bentley Port of Baltimore is a shipping port along the tidal basins of the three branches of the Patapsco River in Baltimore, Maryland on the upper northwest shore of the Chesapeake Bay. It is the nation's largest port facilities fo ...

to Sparrows Point that would be off loaded by the PBR. The PBR owned primarily steam and later diesel switching locomotives, from various manufacturers such as Baldwin,

ALCO The American Locomotive Company (often shortened to ALCO, ALCo or Alco) was an American manufacturer of locomotives, diesel generators, steel, and tanks that operated from 1901 to 1969. The company was formed by the merger of seven smaller locomo ...

, and EMD for moving cars in and out of Sparrows Point. The PBR also rostered a fleet of

gondolas The gondola (, ; vec, góndoła ) is a traditional, flat-bottomed Venetian rowing boat, well suited to the conditions of the Venetian lagoon. It is typically propelled by a gondolier, who uses a rowing oar, which is not fastened to the hul ...

for delivering finished products from the plant. The decline of the US steel market in the latter half of the twentieth-century caused a decline in traffic for the PBR as Bethlehem Steel shut down many of its operations at Sparrows Point. Steel making on the point would cease forever when the fourth successor to Bethlehem Steel, RG Steel went bankrupt in 2012 and the site was liquidated. Much of the track from the PBR remains in place as the area, under development as Tradepoint Atlantic, awaits redevelopment and new tenants.

Preserved Equipment

References

External links

Tradepoint Atlantic website for Sparrows Point site redevelopment

Maryland Department of Transportation map of in state railroads.

Patapsco & Back Rivers Railroad Photographic Roster
{{Maryland railroads Companies based in Baltimore Maryland railroads Switching and terminal railroads Transportation in Baltimore