Pope's Creek Subdivision
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The Pope's Creek Subdivision is a CSX Transportation
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 in
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 ...
, running from Bowie to Morgantown where the
Morgantown Generating Station The Morgantown Generating Station is a 1,477 MW electric generating plant owned by GenOn Holdings LLC., located in the unincorporated town of Newburg, Maryland, near Morgantown, on the Potomac River. The station was built in 1970.GenOn En ...
is located and the
Chalk Point Generating Station The Chalk Point Generating Station is an electricity-generating plant, comprising oil and natural gas fired units, owned by NRG Energy, located near the town of Eagle Harbor, Maryland, United States, on the Patuxent River. Plant operator GenOn E ...
.


History

The Pope's Creek Subdivision was originally built by the
Baltimore and Potomac Railroad The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad (B&P) operated from Baltimore, Maryland, southwest to Washington, D.C., from 1872 to 1902. Controlled by the Pennsylvania Railroad, it was the second railroad company to connect the nation's capital to the Nor ...
. The company was organized on December 19, 1858, and began surveying the route May 3, 1859. Construction started in 1861 but progressed slowly until 1867, when the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and its ally, 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 ...
(NCRY), bought the company. The PRR at the time had access to
Baltimore 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 ...
via its own lines: the NCRY from the north and the
Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) was an American railroad that operated independently from 1836 to 1881. It was formed in 1836 by the merger of four state-chartered railroads in three Middle Atlantic states to create a ...
from the northeast. However, it used the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) and its
Washington Branch Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered on ...
to continue southwest to
Washington, D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, ...
The PRR and B&O were rivals, and the
Maryland General Assembly The Maryland General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland that convenes within the State House in Annapolis. It is a bicameral body: the upper chamber, the Maryland Senate, has 47 representatives and the lower chamber ...
refused to grant a charter to end the B&O's
monopoly A monopoly (from Greek el, μόνος, mónos, single, alone, label=none and el, πωλεῖν, pōleîn, to sell, label=none), as described by Irving Fisher, is a market with the "absence of competition", creating a situation where a speci ...
on Baltimore-Washington travel. However, the existing Baltimore and Potomac charter allowed exactly that, via the clause that allowed branches; all the PRR had to do was to take the line within 20 miles (32 km) of Washington. The PRR obtained a charter for the section in Washington on February 5, 1867. Thus the new Baltimore-Washington line opened on July 2, 1872, and the required "main line" to Pope's Creek on the
Potomac River The Potomac River () drains the Mid-Atlantic United States, flowing from the Potomac Highlands into Chesapeake Bay. It is long,U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map. Retrieved Augu ...
, immediately relegated to branch status, opened on January 1, 1873. Passenger service from Bowie to Pope's Creek ended on October 29, 1949. Ownership of the line passed from the PRR to the
Penn Central Transportation Company The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals (the Pennsylvania, New York Central and th ...
in 1968 and to Conrail in 1976. When Conrail was split in 1999, CSX Transportation was assigned the line.


Current operation

The Pope's Creek Subdivision currently runs from its interchange at Bowie with
Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...
's Northeast Corridor main line, to the Morgantown and
Chalk Point Generating Station The Chalk Point Generating Station is an electricity-generating plant, comprising oil and natural gas fired units, owned by NRG Energy, located near the town of Eagle Harbor, Maryland, United States, on the Patuxent River. Plant operator GenOn E ...
s. A wye track exists to allow trains to enter Amtrak's main line and go north or south, so that a second engine or
cab car A control car, cab car (North America), control trailer, or driving trailer (UK and Ireland) is a non-powered rail vehicle from which a train can be operated. As dedicated vehicles or regular passenger cars, they have one or two driver compartm ...
is not needed. Amtrak limits these trains to late night/very early morning runs and no more than 160 cars. The line is mostly single tracked, with long sidings in Collington, Upper Marlboro and
Brandywine Brandywine may refer to: Food and drink *Brandy, a spirit produced by distilling wine *Brandywine tomato, a variety of heirloom tomato Geographic locations Canada * Brandywine Falls Provincial Park, British Columbia * Brandywine Mountain, British ...
. At Brandywine the Herbert Subdivision branches off, carrying a single track to the GenOn Chalk Point Power Station. If the train continues straight through Brandywine, it will reach the Morgantown Generating Station. This line currently hosts 2 to 3 trains a day (a down-and-back
coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal is formed when ...
train and an occasional local
freight train Rail freight transport is the use of railroads and trains to transport cargo as opposed to human passengers. A freight train, cargo train, or goods train is a group of freight cars (US) or goods wagons (International Union of Railways) haul ...
serving a few businesses in the Waldorf and La Plata area). The
Navy A navy, naval force, or maritime force is the branch of a nation's armed forces principally designated for naval and amphibious warfare; namely, lake-borne, riverine, littoral, or ocean-borne combat operations and related functions. It in ...
spur A spur is a metal tool designed to be worn in pairs on the heels of riding boots for the purpose of directing a horse or other animal to move forward or laterally while riding. It is usually used to refine the riding aids (commands) and to ba ...
that branched off at White Plains (between Waldorf and La Plata) going over to Indian Head, was in service from 1918 into the 1960s. After decades of non-use and efforts to start a tourist railroad, the spur was converted to a rail trail in 2008.


Future conversion possibility

The
Maryland Transit Administration The Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) is a state-operated mass transit administration in Maryland, and is part of the Maryland Department of Transportation. The MTA operates a comprehensive transit system throughout the Baltimore-Washingt ...
conducted a study in 2009 to evaluate the feasibility of
MARC Train MARC (Maryland Area Rail Commuter) is a commuter rail system in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. MARC is administered by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and operated under contract by Alstom and Amtrak on track owned b ...
passenger service on this line.


See also

*
List of CSX Transportation lines CSX Transportation owns and operates a vast network of rail lines in the United States east of the Mississippi River. In addition to the major systems which merged to form CSX – the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, Chesapeake and Ohio Railway, L ...


References

{{refbegin CSX Transportation lines Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad lines Rail infrastructure in Maryland Transportation in Prince George's County, Maryland