In 1979 I rode Amtrak to Baltimore to visit my aunt. I had made the trip from Fort Wayne on the Broadway Limited before, and wanted to see a different route. I made plans to board Amtrak Train 50, the Cardinal at Marion, Indiana, and change to Amtrak Train 66, the Hilltopper, at Catlettsburg, Kentucky. The Hilltopper is no more, and the tracks then used by the Cardinal are becoming the Cardinal Greenway.
Train 50 arrives at Marion behind one of Amtrak's workhorse F40 locomotives.
We arrived a little over an hour late, around 11 p.m. at Catlettsburg, but that wasn't a problem because the Hilltopper wasn't scheduled to leave there until 5:33 the next morning. The station was a small, fairly well-kept cinder-block building with a cement platform. There were some teenaged girls with a boombox camped out in the brightly fluorescent-lighted waiting room, but the night was warm and balmy so I sacked out on an empty baggage cart outside, with my big ol' rucksack for a pillow.
The railroad operation was very smooth; track was good, and everything went according to schedule; there was very little radio chatter, because there seemed to be no need for it. They just followed a routine procedure and ran the train.
For much of the ride, I stood at the rear door of the last coach with my camera for a broad-field view that I couldn't get from a coach window. I think this was near Narrows, West Virginia. We popped out of a tunnel and right onto a curved bridge.
The concrete structure that straddles the tracks in the distance is a coal dock, used for fueling locomotives in the steam era.
They serviced the locomotive at Richmond, Virginia, probably to avoid having to do it at Washington, which is much busier and prone to congestion. I saw the southbound Auto Train pulling out as we rolled up to the platform, but couldn't get a clear shot at it.
We were on time at Washington Union Station and the schedule said there was a 55-minute layover, so I hopped off, noted the track number and a couple of car numbers and names, and set out to explore the station.
Allowing about fifteen minutes, I headed back to my coach. When I arrived at the track, there was no train! After a heart-pounding frenzied search I found it on a nearby track and scrambled on board just as the car attendant prepared to close the door for departure. What I hadn't known was that the layover was so that they could add more cars including a sleeper and food service, so that the train could run on through to Boston overnight. The switching involved changing platforms.
We arrived on time at Baltimore's 1912 Penn Station. That was before the Amtrak renovation, but even then the building was well kept and impressive.
Baltimore cityscapes
The Phoenix Shot Tower was used to make lead shot for rifles from 1828 until 1892. Molten lead was poured through a sieve at the top of the 234-foot tower, and took the shape of perfectly-formed spherical droplets as it fell. It was caught in a large water tank at the bottom for final cooling and to cushion the landing and preserve the spherical shape. Until the Washington Monument was completed at the end of the Civil War, this was the tallest building in the United States. It was designated a National Historic Monument in 1972.
The Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary was built during the period from 1805 to 1821. It was designed by architect Benjamin Latrobe and is America's first Cathedral. The towers were not completed until the 1830s, more than ten years after Latrobe died, and controversy still exists as to whether they were designed by Latrobe's son or by another architect.
Subway construction on Baltimore Street. They dug vertical shafts to track level at the station locations, and during business hours they covered the openings with big steel plates. Underground crews bored tunnels through bedrock, sometimes as deep as 120 feet below the surface, and moved the debris to the station locations during the day, and then at night they'd open the shafts and hoist the debris out with cranes and load it into trucks. It was pretty noisy and dusty downtown at night.
Inner Harbor
The Port of Baltimore opened in 1729. At first, its major export commodity was tobacco. Large shipments of wheat to the Caribbean and Europe came later, and in the 19th century oil refineries and iron making were major industries. After the end of World War II shipping began to move to other ports, and the harbor went into serious decline. By the 1950s the area was a deserted slum of abandoned, decrepit warehouses producing virtually no tax revenue. It wasn't a place anyone wanted to go.
In the late 1950s the business community began to investigate ways to bring life back to this area. It took twenty-five years for progress to become tangible, but the Inner Harbor has become a center for recreation, entertainment and education. Among other venues are a science museum and an aquarium.
Launched in 1854, the USS Constellation was the last all-sail vessel built for the United States Navy. She was the second ship to bear her name; the first was a frigate commissioned in 1797, that served until 1853. This Constellation served on anti-slave trader patrol 1854-1861, and protected Union shipping from Confederate raiders in the Mediterranean during the Civil War. She came to Baltimore in 1955.
Fort McHenry dates to 1776 and the Revolutionary War, when it was known as Fort Whetstone. The British never attacked Baltimore during the Revolutionary War, and the Fort didn't face hostile action then. It was renamed in honor of James McHenry, President Washinton's Secretary of War.
It is the nation's only National Historic Shrine, having received that designation in 1939.
One day, my aunt, my nephews and I boarded MV Port Welcome for a trip to Betterton Beach. It was a great opportunity to see the harbor and commercial shipping facilities as we departed.
Betterton was founded as a fishing village in the 1700s, and in the 19th and early 20th centuries it was a popular beach destination that could be reached by steamer from the nearby cities. Its decline came with the construction of the Bay Bridge and the popularity of the automobile that gave people easy access to ocean beaches. Part of Betterton's desirability as a swimming beach came from the fact that it is far enough up in the Chesapeake that fresh water from the rivers decreases the salinity and keeps out sea nettles.
In these photos, Betterton looks as though its better days are behind it.
These 1979 views from the World Trade Center will show you how much Baltimore has changed!
Check out Camden Yards. In 1979, the huge B&O freight houses were some of the last remnants of the old harbor district.
B&O intercity passenger trains came to an end with the birth of Amtrak in 1971, and the Camden Station headhouse was closed. Ticket sales for commuter trains to Washinton Union Station were moved to a railcar in the boarding area behind.
The B&O Railroad Museum, located in the historic Mount Clare Roundhouse, showcases historic locomotives and passenger and freight cars and other artifacts like clocks, watches and dining car china.
Shay Locomotive No. 6 was built by Lima in 1944 for the Western Maryland Railroad where it worked in helper service, pushing coal trains up a steep grade. After this picture was taken, it was removed from the museum and loaned to Cass Scenic Railroad in West Virginia, where it takes tourists up a mountain logging railroad. At Cass, it's known as "Big 6" to distinguish it from another Shay there that already carried that number.
Shay locomotives use a three-cylinder engine mounted vertically on the right side of the boiler that drives geared axles via a drive shaft that runs the length of the locomotive. The axles are mounted on articulated trucks like those under a freight or passenger car. This design was originated by lumberman Ephraim Shay; it provides for uniform adhesion and optimum traction on uneven temporary logging or quarry track, and allows the locomotives to negotiate tight curves. The locomotives are slow, with a maximum speed usually around 15 mph, but they have tremendous lugging power and can negotiate grades as steep as 12 percent. On a conventional freight railroad, a 2 percent grade is considered severe.
No. 6 is the last Shay built, and the biggest one still in existence. In contrast with other Shays, which are hand-fired coal burners, Big 6 is an oil burner. With its heavy exhaust beat and deep, throaty whistle, it's a treat to hear the echoing sounds of it working a train up the steep grades.
Jersey Central 1000 was the first commercially successful diesel-electric locomotive. It is a 60-ton, 300 horsepower switch engine built by Ingersoll Rand and General Electric in 1925.
As Streamline Deco took the design world by storm and the first diesel streamliners appeared on a few railroads, several roads hired industrial designers like Henry Dreyfuss and Otto Kuhler to create a streamlined look for their steam locomotives. Many older locomotives were retrofitted with shrouding, and new locomotives were designed with it. In addition, Brooks Stevens designed streamlined equipment including some famous round-ended parlor cars for the Milwaukee Road, and Raymond Loewy designed the sleek GG-1 electrics that replaced the Pennsylvania's box-cabs. Loewy also designed streamlining and new color schemes for Northern Pacific.
Number 51 was America's first streamlined diesel-electric locomotive. It's shown here with a trainset from the Capitol Limited, the B&O's premier Chicago – Washington, D.C. train.
Amtrak throws around train names with "limited" in them in a rather cavalier fashion. The true "Limiteds" were all-first-class trains, with sleeping cars, diners, and lounges, and without coaches. They offered the finest in personal, attentive service and the best food, and only stopped at stations in major cities and at division points where locomotives and crews were exchanged.
Limiteds were accorded the highest priority by the railroads, and freight and lesser passenger trains went to the sidings whenever necessary to provide a clear track and fast running. They were the flagships upon which the railroads built their reputations.
Gritty old power plant
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