Closet Conrail Fan Strikes in Seaford, Delaware

[asciibaron]

You should have let me know you were in town, I'd have gotten a ride with you instead of riding the bus home! (My daughter's car is in the shop eating up my train budget for the next 3 months...she has mine...)

i left out at 12:15pm - i was gonna ask where you was - i have caught the train there before - i just want a nice reflecto off that pond.

-Steve

[Bob Bufkin]

I'm enjoying these posts.  Every time I go to Ocean City and cross an active or abandoned track, I wonder what line it is or was and where it went.  Never have gotten around to checking old maps to check it out.
Bob

[RockGp40]

I heard today while working on the mighty MD&DE that there was a proposal fairly recently (in the past few years) to reopen the Vienna line from Hurlock so that unit coal trains could go to the power plant there. Obviously, it never happened. The cost to rehab that line I guess were just too enormous.

And as a sidenote regarding the MD&DE's operations to Cambridge. Please, please never place a bet as to whether we are going somewhere on a certain day. The only really safe bet is on the northern line (Chestertown) for that line's biggest customer on Wednesdays (and just about all Fridays).

[DKS]

So I just started working on it, and there's no way it'll all fit.

I've felt badly that I drew up such a worthless proposal, so I took another crack at it, this time using some turnout templates. I found that, if you use the Atlas Code 55 #5 turnouts and trim back the point end, and also selectively compress the selective compression, the plan becomes more workable. Given that Venture Milling seemed to be the focal point of the layout, I retained as much of it as possible. The result:



The turnouts highlighted in yellow are cut back as far as possible; the gray ones are unmodified. I hope this effort reignites some interest in this project, or at least provides a little more inspiration.

[asciibaron]

I heard today while working on the mighty MD&DE that there was a proposal fairly recently (in the past few years) to reopen the Vienna line from Hurlock so that unit coal trains could go to the power plant there. Obviously, it never happened. The cost to rehab that line I guess were just too enormous.

the Vienna power plant is oil fired - can not use coal - bad rumor, were you talking to Sean?

-Steve

[3rdrail]

If the Vienna power plant is a steam plant, conversion from oil to coal or natural gas is definitely feasible without a very major expenditure. At the price of oil these days, it would not surprise me if planning was underway for conversion to another fuel.

[wm3798]

Since 1976, the right of way from Hurlock to Vienna has been owned by Delmarva Power and it's heirs.  Someone has something rolling around in the back of their minds...

The trick will be getting the do-gooders and tree-huggers to let the big evil power company burn filthy coal and spew their poison into the fresh pink lungs of the poor defenseless muskrats and Delmarva Fox Squirrels.

Here's hoping!  You can chase that line along rt 331 all the way from Vienna to the junction in Hurlock!!  SD80MACs regularly make the trip to Indian River...  Wouldn't mind seeing some over this way...  Of course the original BC&A 70 lb. rail would have to go... :-\

Nice tune up of the track plan, there Dave.

And Bob, as you head down 50, the first rail line you cross is just above Easton, the old Oxford Branch of the PRR, abandoned since 1976.  Next is at Linkwood in Dorchester County, which is the MDDE Cambridge line, very much alive.  At Vienna you cross the DP&L tracks on an overpass.  The right of way is pretty discernable running along side 331.  I believe the BC&A once crossed 50 at Spring Grove Road in Mardella.  From there the grade runs through what is now a baseball diamond.  If you go back into Mardela proper, there is the remains of a bridge abutment over the stream there.  From there to Salisbury the line stays south of 50, and there is a station still standing in Hebron, another active service point into the 70's.

Between Mardela and Hebron you'll cross "Old Railroad Road".  There actually was never a railroad there, but the grade was installed for a still born Maryland based line that was to have been entirely within the state lines.  (The PRR line is in Delaware from it's beginning all the way to Delmar, just above Salisbury)

If you take old 50 into Salisbury, near Isabella Street you'll cross the BC&A again, barely visible in the pavement.  The clue is a white block building behind the 7-11 which still has a track buried in the weeds next to it.  If you turn left on Isabella Street, you'll cross the grade again, more obviously this time, and if you're really good, you'll see the timber trestle that crosses the upper Wicomico River near a gravel terminal.  Penn Central used this track regularly as there was a Koppers tie mill at Mardela that generated close to 200 carloads a year.

Going east again on old 50, there's a series of underpasses where the highway dips below US 13, followed by the PRR main stem.  If you go north on 13 a few blocks, you'll find the original NYP&N station, and the adjacent BC&A station.  They'll be on your right as you cross what's left of the BC&A's westward track, which I believe is still used occasionally to deliver cars down to a waterfront feed mill.  The BC&A east of here runs out to the Perdue feed facility out by the baseball stadium, which is visible from the 13 bypass.

Heading east again, the next track you cross is at Berlin (pronounced BERlin for you chicken neckers) this is the eastern branch of the PRR Delmarva Division, which splits off up at Harrington.  The grade of the BC&A is visible through Berlin, but there are no tracks there remaining.  Up until the 1930's, the BC&A was a continuous line from Love Point on Kent Island all the way down to Ocean City.  In 1933 the trestle into Ocean City proper was wiped out in a hurricane (the one that cut the inlet at Assateague), and a short time later, the Army Corps of Engineers revised the standards for bridges across navigable waters.  All of the BC&A (which by then was owned by the PRR) bridges were thenceforth abandoned, thus creating the "tape worm" of branch lines that were in place by the 1970's.  Most of the BC&A is long abandoned.  The only segments that still have rail on them are from Preston to Vienna, and from Mill Street in Salisbury out to the Perdue mill.

So now when you're on your way to the beach (Still just a half a tank away!) you can bore your spouse with a little industrial archaeology.  It's also fun to Google map the area and trace the old rights of way.  Pretty tricky because many have been obliterated by farming.

Lee

[asciibaron]

did the rail line in Preston dead end - i tried following it and lost it at the feed mill.

[wm3798]

No, it went up to Queen Anne by way of Bethlehem, crossing the Choptank River near the Dover Bridge.  The Bethlehem station still stands as a private residence.  The grade from Preston to Queen Anne has pretty much been obliterated by farming and/or development.  I'll have to check my old maps to see if I give you any more info.  It may have included what became the Denton Branch, also.
Lee

[asciibaron]

i found the answer... i just wasn't making the connection with how it all went together while driving around looking for it.  i see it went across a field and then lost it in the trees - btw don't eat at that pizza joint in Preston

[wm3798]

I stand corrected... The BC&A came in west of St. Michaels and passed through Easton on its way to Preston.  I was confusing it with the Baltimore and Eastern, which landed at Love Point and went to Denton making a connection to get to Lewes and Rehoboth.

Lee

[RockGp40]

...were you talking to Sean?

-Steve

Steve, I do not know a Sean that works for the MD&DE. I was speaking with my engineer who has been on the job 28+ years.

Brian

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Damn
Looking at that plan is getting back into it...

I think I'd want to revise the staging. That third track is useless for just about anything except a pair of RDCs. Hmm... I I'd kill the far turnout and add a second track that runs all the way to the loop. Maybe shift the whole thing an inch or two "down" and add another long staging track going the other way on the outside too.

[wm3798]

You could also stub end the third track and make it longer.  All your inbound is going to be coming from the north, so there's really no need to have it a thru track.  The second track should be thru because it'll give you a passing siding on the back side for those times when you just want to drain a bottle of Jameson while watching your blue trains swirl around...

I still don't like the fact that the whole thing is "mirror image" of the actual track plan.  Can you flop the whole thing, and make the L sort of a "breakfast bar" that defines the layout space?  That would also open up the possibility of an 8" wide shelf with a fully modeled swing bridge, and a couple of staging tracks to the south along the back wall...

Lee

[Ed Kapuscinski]

Maybe I can flip it, but you know how there's the "trench" behind it now? I really like that. I can hide back there and work on stuff, AND leave it a mess without it being obvious (not that the place isn't already disorganized, but still...). I also like having all that open storage under it. Flipping it around would put it against that wall (and I'd need to find a new place for some furniture doing that), lose me my workbench space, and I don't think work. If anything, I've thought about getting rid of some of the rest of that furniture back there and making it U shaped, maybe continuing that spur running through Invista.

I know it's backwards, but I think I can live with that (never having have been there). I think it may actually get called somewhere else closer to home (and with hills to hide things).