First time in a while!

Now that things are starting to open up from the stay-at-home orders, while on the way back home the other day from an essential errand, I was traveling via US-301, a 4 lane divided (but not limited access) rural highway on the Delmarva, which was paralleled by a “ribbon of rusty rails.” On our many previous trips this way, we noticed a long-disused and very dilapidated service station or convenience store along the highway. So I stopped to check it out.

It appeared fully secured, and a would-be burglar probably wouldn’t net much by going in – other than the distinct possibility of a run-in with a rattlesnake, copperhead or black widow spider. However there was no external evidence of what the building used to be, and nothing can be seen about it on that good old standby, Wikipedia.

After wandering around a bit, I detoured out to the railroad tracks (of course), which were behind me in the above picture. We’ve been this way many times and have never seen a train on them, however we knew they weren’t officially abandoned. Looking way down the tracks, what did I see? OMG!!! The familiar triangular light pattern on the front of the locomotive.

Yes, the engineer waved as the short little train passed….

Well, you know me and my trains. Since the train speed was between 5 and 10 mph, I knew I could get more pictures by driving to the next grade crossing…thus began a short (about 2 hour) train chase for me. Mask and all! Haven’t been train chasing in quite a while!

I just wish I could have done it in a skirt!

Now for some railroad info: the Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company (reporting mark MDDE) is a Class III short-line railroad, formed in 1977 to operate several branch lines of the former Penn Central Railroad in both Maryland and Delaware, United States. These branches were omitted from the system plan for Conrail in 1976 and would have been discontinued without state subsidies. As an alternative to the higher cost of subsidizing Conrail as operator of the branch lines, the Maryland and Delaware governments selected the Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company (MDDE) to serve as the designated operator.

The railroad did not own any of the track it uses until 2000, when it acquired a line between Frankford, Delaware and Snow Hill, Maryland, from the Snow Hill Shippers Association. Today, the railroad operates on 120 miles of track and runs out of the restored station in Federalsburg, Maryland.

For any ferroequinologists out there, this locomotive, now based in Massey, MD, started life in August of 1950 as DL&W 902, then EL 1040, CR 5262 and 9926, before going to the Maryland and Delaware. It is an Alco RS3M with serial number 78077.

Trains are where you find them! And lest you erroneously believe MDDE only operates short freight trains, they DO have long ones, depending on the farming season and business cycle. Some even require two engines! However, just not on that line, at that particular time.

Enjoy…

Mandy