Railroads of Pennsylvania

by Treese, Lorett

  What came to be known as the Baltimore Plot is one of three stories that tie Lincoln to this region of Pennsylvania and its trains. Always less familiar than Lincoln’s train ride into Gettysburg to deliver the eponymous address, the Baltimore Plot is now fading from America’s collective memory, but in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, it was covered in a number of Civil War histories. It was even part of the Pennsylvania public school curriculum, thanks to Martin G. Brumbaugh and Joseph Solomon Walton, who included it in their 1897 book, Stories of Pennsylvania; or, School Readings from Pennsylvania History.

  Lincoln spent almost three weeks traveling by rail from his home in Springfield, Illinois, to his inauguration on a route that would take him through major cities in northern states. In Philadelphia on February 21, 1861, Lincoln was warned not to pass through Baltimore, because rumors abounded that his enemies in that city had vowed he would never take office. In Baltimore, railroad cars were drawn slowly through the streets by horses, so the opportunity to board or sabotage a moving train was greatly increased. Lincoln, however, refused to change his plans, perhaps fearing that his reputation would be damaged if he sneaked into the nation’s capital like a coward. He proceeded by train to Harrisburg, making remarks to supporters at all PRR stations along the way. He addressed the Commonwealth’s house of representatives when he reached Pennsylvania’s capital.

  Later that day, concerned friends, including Thomas A. Scott and Pennsylvania governor Andrew G. Curtin, finally persuaded Lincoln to alter his route and his timing. Scott cleared the tracks for a special train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. The engineer, who was later interviewed by Brumbaugh, recalled his sudden orders to take coach number 29 and a locomotive one mile east of the Harrisburg Station, where Lincoln arrived alone. While the train sped toward Philadelphia, making no stops and taking on water in the most secluded places, Scott cut the telegraph wires connecting Harrisburg with other cities so that word about Lincoln’s whereabouts would not leak out prematurely. In Philadelphia, Lincoln simply caught a scheduled express train bound for Washington, which quietly passed through Baltimore overnight. By morning, the president-elect was safely in the nation’s capital. Mary Lincoln is said to have wept the entire night she spent alone in Harrisburg.

  According to the centennial history of the Western Maryland Railway by Harold A. Williams, just as the train carrying President Lincoln to Gettysburg in 1863 was approaching Hanover Junction, Lincoln announced, “People will expect me to say something to them tomorrow, and I must give the matter some thought.” Though Lincoln scholars tend to agree that the Gettysburg Address was written in Washington before Lincoln left, a legend has always persisted that Lincoln at least polished it on the train en route to Gettysburg. If he did so between Hanover Junction and Gettysburg, then the Western Maryland Railway can claim the honor of being the scene of the final draft of the Gettysburg Address.

  Lincoln’s body was transported to his final resting place on a special funeral train. RAILROAD MUSEUM OF PENNSYLVANIA

  Lincoln and a number of dignitaries left Washington on November 18 by way of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad on a special train decorated with flags and bunting. John W. Garrett, president of the B&O, greeted Lincoln and his entourage at Camden Station in Baltimore. Lincoln took the Northern Central Railway to Hanover Junction, and from there he reached Gettysburg via the Hanover Branch Railroad and the Gettysburg Railroad, both of which later became parts of the Western Maryland Railway.

  Lincoln entered Pennsylvania by rail one last time, in 1865, when his funeral train transported his remains back to Springfield, Illinois. After Lincoln had lain in state at the Capitol, his casket was transported for viewing in Harrisburg and then at Independence Hall in Philadelphia, the first leg on another lengthy rail journey, which ended at Oak Ridge Cemetery in the Illinois capital.

  The Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad

  By the 1880s, Gettysburg was well on its way to becoming a tourist destination. Groups were organized to erect memorials, and visitors demanded better amenities. In 1884, when it was dedicated, the Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad provided a direct route to the town from Harrisburg. Convenient for visiting veterans and tourists, it included a spur south of Gettysburg through the battlefield as far as Little Round Top. Following a merger with another small railroad, it was leased to the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad, serving as the Reading’s Gettysburg Branch and continuing to bring visitors to the battlefield, particularly for memorial events such as the fiftieth and seventy-fifth anniversaries of the battle of Gettysburg.

  After more and more visitors began to arrive by automobile, the Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad’s battlefield tourist spur was removed in 1939, and the railroad ceased passenger service in 1941. The line was briefly incorporated into Conrail before being purchased in 1976 by another company that operated it as the Gettysburg Railroad. The railroad instituted tourist excursions in 1978, while it also moved freight between Gettysburg and Mount Holly, a distance of just over twenty-three miles. In 1996, the line became a subsidiary of RailAmerica, whose operating company, the Gettysburg Railway, continued the excursions under its subsidiary Gettysburg Scenic Rail Tours. The railroad offered a popular ghost train narrated with local stories of hauntings. My husband and I rode in one of its dinner trains back in 2005. Tours were discontinued in 2009.

  Freight is still moving on what is now the Gettysburg & Northern Railroad Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Pioneer Railcorp, between a CSX connection in Gettysburg and a Norfolk Southern connection in Mount Holly Springs. The railroad reports that its principal commodities are canned goods, pulpboard, grain, and scrap paper. There is new antiquarian interest in the old abandoned tourist spur, whose route can still be traced through the battlefield, and whose railroad ties can be found embedded in the ground in parts of Gettysburg. The Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides can arrange a specialized tour. The original Gettysburg and Harrisburg depot is still standing on North Washington Street in Gettysburg.

  The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad

  The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad, familiarly called the “Ma and Pa,” was formed in 1901 by a merger of two rural railroads, one originating in Baltimore and the other in York, and both terminating in the town of Delta, just north of the Mason-Dixon line. At the time, quarries in Delta were the source of Peach Bottom slate, a material popular for roofing and paving.

  Both of the Ma and Pa’s predecessor railroads had been conceived as coal roads and had started as narrow-gauge railroads. Pennsylvania’s Peach Bottom Railway had been organized in the 1870s with the idea of competing with the PRR in transporting coal from central Pennsylvania fields to Philadelphia. In the 1860s, the Maryland Central Railroad had been founded to connect Baltimore with Pennsylvania’s anthracite coalfields by means of connections with the Reading or the Lehigh Valley Railroad. The two railroads had previously merged but split up. By the time of their 1901 merger, both had converted to standard gauge.

  Though neither segment of the Ma and Pa ever connected with a coal mine, the railroad’s freight often included coal for home heating. The railroad also served dairy farms and quarries, as well as manufacturers around York and Red Lion, with connections with the PRR, the B&O, and the Western Maryland.

  The Ma and Pa offered passenger service for rural residents wanting to visit the nearest big city, but not over the most efficient possible route. York and Baltimore are only forty-five miles apart, but via the Ma and Pa, passengers traveled seventy-seven miles. Yet the hilly and curving route was also very picturesque, just the thing to appeal to rail fans, with whom it was popular from the 1930s. The fact that its equipment was by that time antique only made it more attractive for excursions. When the railroad discontinued passenger service in 1954 following the loss of its U.S. mail contract, enthusiasts came from far and wide to ride the last train.

  The railroad continued to haul freight between York and Baltimore until 1958, when Maryland service
below Whiteford was abandoned. Most of the remaining line was abandoned in the early 1980s. One nineteen-mile stretch of former PRR railroad between York and Hanover acquired by the Ma and Pa in the 1980s continued to operate as part of the York Railway. It was acquired by the Genesee & Wyoming in 2002 and continues to serve customers along its line with connections to Canadian Pacific, CSX, and Norfolk Southern. In 1986, the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad Preservation Society was founded to preserve the heritage of the Ma and Pa.

  Howard Wiegner Kriebel Travels

  In 1910, a Lititz publishing company released a collection of sketches penned by Howard Wiegner Kriebel, who was known for having written several other volumes on the history of southeastern Pennsylvania. The sketches had originally appeared in a Lancaster County newspaper called the Pennsylvania-German. Titled Seeing Lancaster County from a Trolley Window, the book was intended to interpret the sights for those traveling from Lancaster to the various terminations of trolley lines that originated in that city. The trolley that ran from Lancaster to Elizabethtown took seventy-five minutes and carried passengers through a fertile agricultural region on a route roughly parallel to the Pennsy main line. If you would enjoy a word painting of Dutch Country settled by farmers stalwart in their religions, in the initial stages of being transformed by development and improved transportation systems into today’s region dominated by outlet malls, all-you-can-eat restaurants, nostalgic buggy rides, and Pennsylvania Dutch souvenirs made in China, read Kriebel’s book. Here is an excerpt.

  The gradual ascent of populous and productive Chestnut Hill opens up to view a wide expanse of an idyllic farming region to the east and south, soon cut off by our descending the north slope of the hill toward Landisville. We change our general direction, passing rich farms with their peaceful homes to the charming grove of the Landisville Camp Meeting Ground famous for its large gatherings and religious services held here each season since 1870.

  Just beyond the grove is a large Mennonite church and close by, one of the county’s historic buildings erected 1742, now an antiquated dwelling house but in its earlier days a Mennonite church. We skirt the century old town, stopping at the glass waiting room to receive passengers and hasten away following the general direction of the Pennsylvania railroad. We pass Salunga, a rotary station, and begin to note the smoke of Mount Joy arising from the rural scenery to the west, presently crossing the Chicquesalunga creek and, passing through the fields of Rapho Township, gradually approach the railroad. We shortly come across a locust grove on Chicques Creek in which we notice the ruins of walls, the remains of the erstwhile Cedar Hill Seminary, established in 1837, and soon find ourselves on the outskirts of Mount Joy. We pass along the southern borders and cross the railroad and before we are aware of it find ourselves leaving the town without getting a good view of it, making us feel that the trolley tracks and cars are or were not wanted in the heart of town. Mount Joy is sliced in two by the deep railroad cut, spanned by seven bridges and is hedged on the north by the railroad on the old bed. Between these lies the main business street on the great Indian trail from Harrisburg to Philadelphia now the Harrisburg pike….

  We resume our journey paralleling the railroad to youthful Rheems beyond which we pass under the railroad to the north side where we ascend a steep hill, and rather unexpectedly find Elizabethtown squatting in a hollow before us. This hill is known as Tunnel Hill because in the early days of railroading a tunnel was dug through it which was later transformed into an open cut. A minute more and we are at the terminus of the trolley line in the square of the ancient burg. This place, a borough since 1827, was laid out in 1753 by Barnabas Hughes and named Elizabethtown in honor of his wife….

  The hills to the west of Elizabethtown are destined to become the Mecca of the Masonic fraternity on account of Masonic charitable institutions…. The ground chosen for the [Masonic] home is situated on the south side of the Pennsylvania Railroad and embraces about 900 acres of fine rolling land with plenty of water and many acres of woodland. The cost of the property to the Grand Lodge will be about $100,000. This is but the beginning of the expenditure to be made for the institution, and it is expected that before the buildings and grounds are ready for occupancy that at least two million of dollars will have been spent.

  Local Chapters of the National Railway Historical Society

  On permanent display at the Harrisburg Transportation Center are a GG1 locomotive and caboose, both of which formerly ran on the Pennsylvania Railroad and are now owned by the Harrisburg Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. The chapter acquired the Harris Switch Tower in 1992 and restored it to its 1945 appearance. It is now periodically open for visitors. The chapter also maintains a modular model train layout and mounts an annual show and collectors’ market. It sponsors chartered excursions and publishes the Harrisburg Rail Review.

  Members of the Lancaster Chapter brought the “J” tower to the Strasburg Rail Road, which they restored and sometimes open to the public for tours. They restored a GG1 called “Old Rivets” and donated it to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania in 2000. They also restored the clock at the Lancaster Train Station. In 2000, the chapter dedicated its new headquarters, the PRR Christiana Freight Station, where it holds monthly meetings. Signs direct visitors through the sometimes confusing streets of the small town of Christiana to the station, which has a platform overlooking the tracks where Amtrak trains travel between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. Furnished with benches, it’s a pleasant train-spotting location. Check an Amtrak Keystone Line schedule and you’ll be guaranteed to see a train.

  The Christiana Freight Station is the headquarters of the Lancaster Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society.

  Named for the Cumberland Valley Railroad, the Cumberland Valley Chapter was founded in 1972. Dedicated to the preservation of local railroad history, the chapter sponsors trips and rail excursions.

  The Region’s Railroad Giants

  John Mifflin Hood (1843–1906)

  When he became president of the Western Maryland Railway (WM) in 1874, John Mifflin Hood presided over 90 miles of rusting single tracks stretching from the outskirts of Baltimore (not the city itself) to Williamsport, Maryland, on the Potomac. Hood served as president and general manager until 1902, and after twenty-eight years of buying and leasing other railroads and laying new track, he left the WM with 270 miles of new track that made it a vital link between Maryland’s Baltimore & Ohio Railroad and the Reading system at Shippensburg, as well as the conduit for Cumberland coal to eastern Pennsylvania.

  John Mifflin Hood was born in Maryland. He was working as a railroad engineer at the age of sixteen. After several months’ employment as an engineer in Brazil, he returned to Baltimore in 1862. Because Maryland did not secede, Hood had to cross Union lines to offer his services to the Confederacy. He fought at Gettysburg and was a lieutenant in the 2nd Regiment of Engineers of the Confederacy at the time of the surrender at Appomattox.

  Strong Southern sympathies on the part of many Marylanders meant that Hood’s association with the Confederate army did not prevent him from finding positions with a number of Maryland railroads after the war. He gained considerable experience in central Maryland and the lower Susquehanna Valley with the Port Deposit branch of the Philadelphia & Baltimore Railroad and the Cecil County line of the Philadelphia and Baltimore Central Railroad.

  Hood’s development and improvement of the Western Maryland Railway was his crowning achievement. Besides expanding the line, he also ensured that it actually entered the city of Baltimore. In 1876, the Hillen Station was opened as the Western Maryland Railway’s Baltimore terminal and company headquarters. His association with the WM ended only when the city of Baltimore sold its interest in the railway to the Fuller syndicate, which was associated with the Gould family. Hood then became president of the United Railways & Electric Co. of Baltimore. In 1911, after his death, the grateful citizens of Baltimore erected a statue to honor his memory.

 
Sampling the Region’s Railroad Scene

  The Strasburg Rail Road

  Even on a chilly, drizzling day in March, hordes of passengers are clustered around the Strasburg Rail Road Station buying tickets for a ride on what the railroad calls “The Road to Paradise.” The steam locomotive pulls slowly and majestically up to the station, and while it is switched from one end of the train to the other, parents guide their children into the restored cars, where anthracite coal is pleasantly sizzling in potbellied stoves.

  The train travels through the heart of Pennsylvania Dutch Country, past unelectrified brick and stone farmhouses and dirt and gravel roads, through a landscape that hasn’t changed much since a railroad was first constructed through these fields in the nineteenth century. The narrator speaks mainly about Amish life while the train passes plainly attired farmers who are so accustomed to the hourly trips of the belching locomotive that they barely look up from the work of plowing fields with genuine horsepower. The train proceeds only about four miles to the town of Paradise, where it halts behind a lumberyard while the locomotive is switched again. Here the tracks of the Strasburg Rail Road join the route originally established by the Philadelphia & Columbia Railroad, and passengers can sometimes spot an Amtrak train on its way to Philadelphia or Harrisburg.

  As a tourist line, the Strasburg Rail Road has played a major role in the more recent development of Strasburg, but this town was important in Pennsylvania’s transportation history before railroads existed. Strasburg is located on a plateau on an old colonial road linking Philadelphia with the Susquehanna River. Since it is roughly midway between these points, it became a town of inns and taverns during the eighteenth century, when this trip generally took two days. Some of the structures that once served drovers and travelers have been carefully restored and are identified with plaques.