The line from Selbyville to Snow Hill remains in use, while the line south of Snow Hill has been abandoned.
History
The Worcester Railroad (WR) was incorporated in 1853 by the state of Maryland to run a railroad from a point on the Virginia State line, to run through Worcester county to the Delaware State line, to connect with any road or roads, which might be built running through the Virginia counties of Accomack and Northampton and Delaware's Sussex county.[2] In 1856 it was authorized to consolidate with several other railroads as part of a plan to create an air line between New York City and Norfolk, Virginia.
The company was organized in July 1869 and work began shortly thereafter on the first 14 mile long segment between Snow Hill and Berlin.[3][4][5] It was completed in 1872 and the W&P operated trains on it.[6]
In January of 1875 Old Dominion Steamship, which had bought the J&B in 1874, purchased the Worcester Railroad, along with the B&F, with plans to create a line from Georgetown, DE to the Chesapeake Bay coast in Virginia.[7][8][9] Old Dominion began extending the B&F south in March and the Worcester south in April. The line between Frankford and Berlin was completed in June of 1875 and trains were running on the tracks by July.[10][11] By early 1876 trains were running as far south as Stockton, Maryland.[12][13] In May they started running to Franklin City.[14]
In 1881, the Pennsylvania Railroad purchased the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad and it appeared they would purchase all the railroads on the peninsula.[15] Instead in 1882 the shareholders began the process of consolidating the J&B, the B&F and the Worcester to form the Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Railroad (DMVR).[16] This was completed in May of 1883.[17][18] The DMVR eventually became part of the Pennsylvania Railroad system and then, following the bankruptcy of Penn Central, part of Conrail before it was sold in part to Norfolk Southern and another part to the state of Delaware.
Legacy
The DMVR was acquired by the PW&B, and thus the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) system, in 1885. In 1955 the DMVR was merged into the PW&B.[19]
In 1956, the section of the rail line in Virginia was abandoned by the PW&B and the PRR and service ended in 1957.[20] In the 1960's the line south of Snow Hill was abandoned.
The remaining line was part of the PRR system until that merged into Penn Central in 1968. Following the bankruptcy of Penn Central it was part of Conrail before Conrail sold the line to the Snow Hill Shippers Association in 1982.[21]
In 2025, the MDDE was sold to Carload Express, but the Snow Hill line was broken into two parts and sold to two buyers.[22] The northern 3 miles were sold to the DCR and the rest of the line - including the entirety of what remained of the old Worcester Railroad - was sold to Old Line, the previous owner of the MDDE.[23]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
