Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Railroad
The Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Railroad is a defunct American railroad that operated passenger service from Broad Street Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Franklin City, Virginia in the late 19th Century and most of the 20th Century. At the latter city, steamship connections could be made to Chincoteague, Virginia on the Atlantic Ocean-side exterior islands.
It was formed from the merger of three railroads on the Delmarva Penninsula. The Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) took control of it following a bankruptcy. It passed to Penn Central and was then broken up among multiple owners following Penn Central's bankruptcy.
Much of it is still in operation, but most of the branch towards Rehoboth has been turned into a trail and the line south of Snow Hill was abandoned in 1956.
History
[edit]The railroad was formed in 1883 through a consolidation of the Junction and Breakwater Railroad, the Breakwater and Frankford Railroad and the Worcester Railroad.
The Junction and Breakwater Railroad (J&B) was a 38 mile long railroad, built between 1858 and 1878 that ran between Harrington, Delaware and Lewes with a spur to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.
The Breakwater & Frankford Railroad (B&F) built a connection, which opened on May 22, 1874, to the J&B at Georgetown that ran from Georgetown to the Maryland line at Selbyville.[1]
By 1876, the Worcester Railroad had built an extension of the B&F line to Franklin City, Virginia and Chincoteague Bay for the purpose of transporting oysters and other shellfish to Philadelphia.[2]
All three of these lines were owned by Old Dominion Steamship.[3]
Pennsylvania Railroad Control
[edit]In March 1891, the DMVR approached default on two mortgages totaling $600,000 and so the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&BR) took control of the company. The Delaware General Assembly met with DMVR directors and those of the PW&BR in order to avoid the default and keep the rail lines open.[4] DMVR shareholders remained minority owners of the line until 1919, when they were unable to meet financial obligations, and the minority shares were sold to the Pennsylvania Railroad.[5]
By the 1910s the Pennsylvania Railroad had leased out or purchased the railroad, appearing on the Pennsylvania Railroad tables of the PRR section of the Official Guide of the Railways of North America.[6] By the end of the 1920s the line was among those rail lines throughout the Delmarva Peninsula that the PRR fully acquired.
In 1934 the DMVR bought the Milton Industrial Track, part of the Queen Anne's Railroad between Ellendale to Milton after the Queen Anne's went bankrupt.
The Pennsylvania Railroad passenger trains operated along the route until the late 1940s, stopping at towns just a few miles inland from resort towns on the eastern coast of the Delmarva Peninsula. Frequency along the route dwindled from three trains in each direction in the early 1910s to one train a day in each direction in 1941.
Service across the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal in Rehoboth was eliminated in the 1940's.[7]
Passenger service along the lines was eliminated by 1949.
In 1956, the PRR abandoned the tracks between Snow Hill, Maryland and Franklin City, Virginia.[8]
In 1968, the PRR and its longtime rival New York Central Railroad merged to form the Penn Central Railroad and the former DMVR became part of that entity. In the 1970s, Penn Central abandoned the rail line between Lewes and Rehoboth Beach.[3] The Penn Central declared bankruptcy in 1970 but continued to operate trains until 1976, when the company's railroad assets were sold To Conrail.
Conrail
[edit]Conrail continued to own the line from Harrington to Frankford, but planned to abandon the rest of the system. The railroad line between Georgetown and Lewes and the Milton Industrial Track were instead sold that to DelDOT and DelDOT hired the newly-formed Delaware Coast Line Railroad (DCLR) to serve the two lines. The line from Frankford to Snow Hill, the Snow Hill Branch Line, was sold to the Snow Hill Shippers Association, a group of businesses that relied on the line, in 1982. Snow Hill Shippers hired the Maryland and Delaware Railroad (MDDE) to operate it.
In 1999, Norfolk Southern purchased the section of track from Harrington to Frankford during the breakup of Conrail, which it then called the Delmarva Secondary line.
Local Operation
[edit]By the time Conrail was done the DMVR trackage was had been broken up into four pieces: The Delmarva Secondary Line (owned and operated by NS), the Milton Industrial Track and the Georgetown-Lewes Line (both owned by DelDOT and operated by the DCLR) and the Snow Hill Branch Line (owned by the Snow Hill Shippers Association and operated by MDDE).
In 2000 the MDDE acquire the Snow Hill Branch Line,[9] from the Snow Hill Shippers Association.
Freight service continued to run to Lewes where it served the SPI Pharma plant near Cape Henlopen with two to three transports a month. Operations fluctuated between DCLR and MDDE until September 2016 when DelDot closed the swing bridge over the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal to rail traffic. Over the years it had sunk 7-8 inches due to settlement in the canal and some pieces of timber had split; and was thus found to be structurally unsound.[10] In 2017, DelDOT determined that repairs to the swing bridge would be too costly and that they would abandon the line from Lewes to Cool Spring Road.[11] A train pulled the last tank cars out of Lewes on December 15, 2017, ending train service to Lewes.[12] The line was decommissioned in 2018 and the tracks east of the Allen Harim Poultry Plant in Harbeson were removed that year.[13]
In 2016, Norfolk Southern turned operation of the Delmarva Secondary line from Harrington to Frankford, along with the line from Porter, DE to Pocomoke City, MD, to the Delmarva Central Railroad.[14]
In early 2018, DCLR lost its contract to operate what remained of the Georgetown-Lewes branch and the Milton Industrial Track. The Delmarva Central Railroad took over the contract and extended its existing operations to include the DCLR's tracks effective January 1, 2019. DCLR exited the railroad business and sold off its equipment.[15]
Today, the Delmarva Central Railroad operates the Delmarva Secondary Line, owned by NS, and the DelDot owned Milton Industrial Track and the Georgetown-Harbeson, The Snow Hill Branch Line is owned and operated by the MDDE.
Remnants
[edit]
In addition to all of the remnants of the Junction and Breakwater Railroad there are other parts of the DMVR that remain.
The line from Georgetown, DE to Snow Hill, MD is still in use as is the Milton Industrial Track.
From Georgetown to Snow Hill several old stations remain including the one at Queponco Road in Newark, DE, which is now a museum.
The right-of-way from Snow Hill, MD to Franklin City, MD was abandoned and all the tracks have been removed. The stations at Snow Hill and Girdletree, MD; the depot at Franklin City and a couple of vintage RR crossing signs in Girdletree where the line used to be are the only remnants of the section south of Snow Hill. In 2020, the Federal Government announced that it wanted the Franklin City Depot removed and began looking for people to take it.[16]
Route
[edit]The noteworthy towns along the route, south of Wilmington, Delaware consisted of:[17]
- Harrington, Delaware
- Ellendale
- Georgetown
- Lewes
- Rehoboth
- Selbyville
- Berlin, Maryland
- Snow Hill
- Franklin City, Virginia
External links
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ Howeth, Harrison (9 May 2019). "BREAKWATER & FRANKFORD RAILROAD 1874". Retrieved 26 November 2024.
- ^ Reprint of article from Norfolk Virginian-Pilot of January 6, 2008. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
- ^ a b Ludlow, David. "Delaware Railroad History". Retrieved 26 November 2024.
- ^ "D., M. & V. R. R. DEAL". The Morning News. Wilmington, Delaware. March 19, 1891. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
- ^ "P.R.R. Would Buy Peninsula Road". The Evening Journal. Wilmington, Delaware. July 23, 1919. Retrieved 2020-12-16.
- ^ "Pennsylvania Railroad, Table 101: Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Railroad". Official Guide of the Railways. 42 (8). National Railway Publication Company. January 1910.
- ^ "Pennsylvania Railroad, Table 81: Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Branch". Official Guide of the Railways. 74 (1). National Railway Publication Company. May 1941.
- ^ Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) abandonment index, Part II, ICC case #19305 Accessed at [1]
- ^ Williams, Vernon A. (February 16, 2000). "Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company-Acquisition Exemption-Snow Hill Shippers Association, Inc". federalregister.gov. Department of Transportation Surface Transportation Board. p. 9306. Retrieved 14 September 2022.
- ^ MacArthur, Ron (September 28, 2016). "Swing bridge over canal closed for repair". Cape Gazette. Retrieved November 27, 2017.
- ^ MacArthur, Ron (August 27, 2017). "Era or train travel over Lewes-Rehoboth Canal ends". Cape Gazette. Retrieved November 27, 2017.
- ^ Roth, Nick (December 15, 2017). "Last train from Lewes". Cape Gazette. Retrieved December 18, 2017.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
SussexCowas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ "UPDATED: New short line to take over NS's Delmarva Secondary". Trains Magazine. October 19, 2016. Retrieved March 25, 2017.
- ^ Laepple, Wayne (August 22, 2018). "Delaware Coast Line shuts down after 36 years". Trains. Retrieved October 24, 2018.
- ^ Vaughn, Carol (27 February 2020). "Federal Government Wants Early Railroad Building Removed". Retrieved 30 November 2024.
- ^ "Pennsylvania Railroad, Table 81: Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Branch". Official Guide of the Railways. 78 (12). National Railway Publication Company. May 1946.
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