Pennsylvania Railroad

As a girl growing up in Madison, Ind., in the 1930s and 1940s, Ramona Bennett was fascinated by the past. That might have had something to do with Madison, a venerable Ohio River town designed in 1821 by Alexander Ralston, who helped Pierre L'Enfant design Washington, D.C. It's filled with gorgeous old houses bearing names such as the Jeremiah Sullivan House and the Lanier Mansion. Bennett came to Aberdeen in 1958 to work at the Aberdeen Proving Ground. Until she retired in 1988, she scheduled munitions tests for all of the nine proving grounds around the country.

It's been more than half a century since the trains of the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad — quaintly remembered by old-timers in these parts as the Ma & Pa — rolled over a single set of tracks on a circuitous 77.2-mile route that began in the Jones Falls Valley and, after wandering across Baltimore and Harford counties, terminated in York, Pa. And it's been nearly that long since a new full-scale profile of the railroad has been undertaken;...

Francis R. Rahl Sr., a retired railroader who enjoyed spending his retirement years on Maryland's Eastern Shore, died Saturday of lung cancer at his son's Union Square home. He was 90. Mr. Rahl, the son of an electro-nickel plater and a homemaker, was born and raised in Greensburg, Pa. After graduating from Greensburg High School in 1937, he worked as an orderly at Greensburg Hospital and later at the Robertshaw Thermostat in Youngwood, Pa. He enlisted in the Army in 1942 and served as an operating room medic in a military hospital at Fort Wayne, Ind., until being discharged in 1946.

Oliver F. "Ollie" Lowman Jr., a retired railroader and World War II veteran, died March 15 of multiple organ failure at Carroll Hospital Center. The Finksburg resident was 84. The son of a Baltimore police officer and a homemaker, Mr. Lowman was born and raised in Baltimore. Mr. Lowman dropped out of high school and enlisted in the Navy in 1943. He served in the Atlantic as a gunner aboard the light cruisers USS Philadelphia and USS Providence and the freighter SS Rhode Island.

In 1835, the first train to reach the nation's capital chugged into the city over the Baltimore and Washington Railroad, as the Washington branch of the Baltimore and Ohio was known then.However, there was probably no more spectacular train arrival in Washington than that of the Pennsylvania Railroad's Federal Express on Jan. 15, 1953.The Boston-Washington overnight train, No. 173, smashed a bumper post, plowed into the station concourse and stopped only after the locomotive fell through the crushed floor into the basement of Union Station.

An article in yesterday's editions misidentified the railroad that used the York Road trestle in the mid-1920s; the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad used the tracks.The Sun regrets the error.Pub Date: 7/12/97

The MA & PA Heritage Trail in Bel Air, which runs along the old Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad corridor, was built 10 years ago. Bikers, dog walkers and nature lovers frequent the path, which is now two miles longer, from Tollgate Road to Edgeley Grove. A "Trail-a-bration" will be held Saturday to mark the anniversary of the trail and celebrate the new addition. The event will be from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. The Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad was established in 1901 and ran from Baltimore York, Pa. It was 77 miles long and crossed 111 bridges.

THE STORY OF THE NORTHERN CENTRAL RAILWAY.Robert L. Gunnarsson.Greenberg Publishing.189 pages. $39.95. Marylanders used to thinking that the B&O Railroad was the only major railroad construction project during the 1820s in the state have forgotten the Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad. The B&S became the Northern Central Railway and finally wound up as a far-flung line of the Pennsylvania Railroad system, linking Baltimore with Sodus Point on Lake Ontario.Today, part of the railroad is on the verge of becoming the new Central Light Rail line, which will open this spring and eventually link Hunt Valley with Glen Burnie.

The last Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad passenger train stopped in Bel Air on August 31, 1954. Affectionately known as the Ma & Pa, the railroad connected Baltimore and York, Pa., over a circuitous 77 mile route. Its earliest predecessor, the Maryland Central Railroad, was chartered in Maryland in 1867 for the purpose of building a Baltimore to Philadelphia line via Bel Air and Conowingo but laid no track. The first actual construction on the route of the Ma & Pa began in Pennsylvania with the Peach Bottom Railway which completed a narrow gauge line from York through Red Lion and Delta to Peach Bottom on the Susquehanna River between 1873 and 1876.

Last train service from Bel Air On Aug. 31, 1954, a train on the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad left Bel Air Station for the last time. Known affectionately as the "Ma and Pa," the railroad scaled back operations until 1959, when it folded, ending a railroad that during its 80 years of existence did much for the agricultural and economic development of Harford County. As early as 1867, a company was chartered to build a railroad from Baltimore to Philadelphia through Bel Air and crossing the river at Conowingo.

In the hobo culture, they have a saying when one of their own dies: They've "caught the westbound. " Two who recently caught the "westbound" last month were students of American railroading, Howard Russell Simpson, 83, and Charles Swann Roberts, 80. As far as I know, the two men never met, but Howard, who was a friend of mine for more than 30 years, certainly had Roberts' books on the shelves of his library in his Roland Park home....

Charles Swann Roberts, an author and co-founder of publishing company Barnard, Roberts and Co. Inc. known for his extensive histories of the Pennsylvania Railroad, died Aug. 20 from complications of emphysema and pneumonia at St. Agnes Hospital. The Halethorpe resident was 80. Mr. Roberts was working in his Willow Avenue office in Halethorpe, which overlooks the former Pennsy mainline (now the Northeast Corridor) when he was stricken, said a daughter, Jean R. Schweitzer of Catonsville.

I can't resist commenting on the July 14, 2010, piece "Historic Rodgers Tavern to undergo restoration." This is not its first. In 1993, the recently restored tavern was turned over to the town of Perryville by Preservation Maryland, the historic site's owner since 1957 after buying it to spare its demolition by the Pennsylvania Railroad. Sometimes ensuring the preservation of our state's historic treasures takes longer than we'd like. That's why Preservation Maryland continues to fight for our irreplaceable past, as we have done for nearly 80 years.

Francis R. Rahl Sr., a retired railroader who enjoyed spending his retirement years on Maryland's Eastern Shore, died Saturday of lung cancer at his son's Union Square home. He was 90. Mr. Rahl, the son of an electro-nickel plater and a homemaker, was born and raised in Greensburg, Pa. After graduating from Greensburg High School in 1937, he worked as an orderly at Greensburg Hospital and later at the Robertshaw Thermostat in Youngwood, Pa. He enlisted in the Army in 1942 and served as an operating room medic in a military hospital at Fort Wayne, Ind., until being discharged in 1946.

William George Russell Bell, a retired railroad dispatcher and a third-generation railroader, died Monday of complications from a stroke at his daughter's home in Houston. Mr. Bell, a longtime Uniontown resident, was 92. Born in Baltimore and raised in West Arlington, Mr. Bell's grandfather had been a Western Maryland Railway telegrapher, and his father had been a freight clerk for the Pennsylvania Railroad. He attended City College and later earned his General Educational Development certificate.

Sidney Joseph Williams Jr., a former railroad conductor who established a Middle River real estate company, died of Alzheimer's disease July 14 at his Joppatowne home. He was 70. Mr. Williams was born in Baltimore and raised in Bowleys Quarters. While serving in the Air Force as a jet mechanic in the 1950s, he earned his General Educational Development diploma. He went to work in 1957 for the Pennsylvania Railroad as a freight conductor and retired from successor company Penn-Central in the early 1970s.

Donald Griffith Hughes, a retired engineer who operated steam and diesel locomotives on the old Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad, died of cancer Wednesday at his Parkville home. He was 86. Born in Cardiff in northern Harford County, he moved with his family to West 31st Street as a child and attended city public schools. Officials of the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad hired him in 1940 at age 20 - below the normal minimum age of 21 - because his father and father-in-law worked for the line, which operated between Baltimore, Towson, Bel Air and York, Pa. He began as a fireman on steam locomotives and became an engineer in 1947, working both passenger and freight trains.