| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Princess Anne, Maryland |
| Key people | John W. Crisfield |
| Locale | Eastern Shore of Maryland, U.S. |
| Dates of operation | 1860–1884 |
| Successor | New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Length | 37 miles (60 km) |
The Eastern Shore Railroad was a railroad, opened in 1860, that connected the Delaware Railroad at Delmar to the Chesapeake Bay at Crisfield, Maryland and by boat to Norfolk, Virginia. It was also used to connect a branch to Pocomoke City, Maryland in 1871. It was foreclosed on in 1879 and acquired by the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad in 1884 [1] [2] It is unrelated to the 20th century Eastern Shore Railroad which ran on a different set of tracks.
The Eastern Shore Railroad was chartered in 1835 and offered a $1 million subscription to encourage its construction, but the charter sat unused until 1853 when it was utilized to extend the Delaware Railroad south from Delmar to Tangier Sound to connect to steamships headed for Norfolk. [3] The company was organized on February 22, 1859 and work commenced the following October. The first section of the railroad to Salisbury, Maryland opened in April 1860. [4]
Work was interrupted by the Civil War but resumed afterwards. The railroad reached Crisfield on Tangier Sound in 1866. [1]
In 1871, the Worcester & Somerset Railroad built a 9 mile line branch off of the line from a point at Kings Creek, called Peninsular Junction to Pocomoke City in 1871. [1]
In 1874, the Eastern Shore built an expensive fill and trestle that extended the rail terminal to what was known as “the Old Island” in 1874. [1]
In 1879 the Eastern Shore was foreclosed on and acquired by the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad in 1884 and absorbed into that railroad and became the "Crisfield Branch' of that line [5] . [1]
The full line eventually became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad and later Penn Central. Following the 1974 bankruptcy of Penn Central the line was broken into three parts.
The line between Delmar, DE and Kings Creek is still in use as the Delmarva Secondary, owned by Norfolk Southern and operated by the Delmarva Central Railroad; as is the Crisfield Industrial Track extending 1.2 miles south from Kings Creek.
The 15.1 mile long line from the end of the Crisfield Industrial Track to Crisfield was sold to the Maryland Department of Transportation as the Crisfield Secondary Branch in 1976 and was reserved in case a line to the deep water port in Crisfield was ever needed again, but in 2018 the County began to turn it into a rail trail. [6] [7] [8] The line was abandoned immediately after Maryland purchased it and the last train, pulling eight San Luis Central ice reefers of onions for a local plant that produced frozen onion rings at the time, left Crisfield on April 4, 1976. [9] The tracks were soon pulled up and the old freight station torn down. [10] About 4.7 miles of the right-of-way from Crisfield to Marion were used to build phase 1 of the Terrapin Run Recreational Trail in 2019-21 and Somerset County started work on the 3.2 mile phase 2b between the Big Annemessex River and Westover, MD in 2024 (with completion in 2027. [11] Future phases will connect the two ends of the trail.
Within the town of Crisfield, between the city pier and Main Street, Maryland Route 413 replaced the railroad in 1956. North of Main Street, the railroad track separated the two directions of MD 413: Maryland Avenue formed the southbound lanes while Richardson Avenue comprised the northbound lanes until it was abandoned in 1976 and then removed and replaced with a landscaped median.
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