Story and Map of the Western Maryland

[Matthew Roberts]

Could anyone tell me the story of the WM in a nutshell. Always been interested since seeing Lee's layout. How long was it? And can anyone find a map online of the entire route?

[wm3798]

I'm walking out the door at the office, Matt, give me about 20 minutes...
In the meantime, go to my webpage, and read the "About the WM" section...  There will be quiz later...
www.wmrywesternlines.net

Lee

[Matthew Roberts]

Wow, never thought of the WM as a granger road. Sad ending to a great bridge route, too, Lee. Wonder what would've happened if the N&W had merged with it?

[wm3798]

I was referring to the period from 1852 to about the Civil War.  Hogs and Grain to Baltimore...

Lee

[Matthew Roberts]

Yeah, I got that, it's still a different thought though, Lee. How much does the MMID run over?

[John]

http://www.mmidrwy.com/maps.html

[Bob Bufkin]

WM ran a class operation back in the 70's.  Think this is the first photo I posted on here:

My friends and I would go to the yard office, sign a release and we basically had the run of the place.  The loco shown above was detached from the F unit and they actually let us run the unit thru the yard back and forth for a good 45 minutes.  First time I ever had a chance to run an actualy locomotive. 
Bob

[wm3798]

And on my layout, that same locomotive is immortalized in styrene!
After holding that run switch, I bet you never washed that hand again!

Lee

[Bob Bufkin]

Only other time I got the control of a loco was on the PRR and an F unit to boot.  Didn't move it but the engineer showed me all the controls.  Train coming off the Reading back onto PRR rails at Pennroad Tower.  Coal train with empty B&O hoppers.

[Mark5]

http://www.mmidrwy.com/maps.html

To be clear, the North-South MMID line on that map is Ex-PRR.

[Matthew Roberts]

Thanks for the heads up on the PRR line. Who ran the WM? i.e. controlling interests? I know many bridgelines were partially owned by the other lines that routed traffic over them. Any smaller roads that interchanged with the WM?

[Mark5]

Matthew:

Some fun stuff:

http://www.alphabetroute.com/wm/history.php

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet_Route

Mark

[3rdrail]

The Western Maryland was built by the City of Baltimore to compete with the B&O and the Northern Central (later PRR-PC). Gould had control for a short while in his attempt to form a transcontinental. Believe that after the railroads were returned to private ownership in 1921 by the USRA it was owned but not controlled by the B&O or C&O.

Lot of that went on, PRR owned but did not control the Wabash and LV,  for example.

[Bob Bufkin]

Don't forget that the PRR at one time owned the B&O.

[Matthew Roberts]

Mark, thanks for the Alphabet Route information, I liked the stuff I found on the P&WV, too!

Thanks, Gregg. BTW, how long did you work for the Appalachiacola Northern?