Indian Head, MD, Navy rail line becoming a trail

Received this information on 12/6: "The Indian Head-White Plains railroad has been transferred to Charles County. The transfer was from Navy to GSA to Dept. of Interior, National Park Service, to Charles County, Park and Grounds. The transfer includes 160 acres, 13.3 miles of railroad track and six railroad cars. The small amount of track from the base fence by post one to Mattingly Avenue will remain Navy property. The transferred property will be used as a walking and bicycling trail."

Since there are no Navy railroad cars off-base, the paragraph above most likely refers to the derelict ex-LIRR commuter cars stranded at the White Plains, MD, interchange with CSX. Following a derailment with sister LIRR cars within a CSX train some years ago, CSX embargoed any further shipments of such cars over its lines.

If you go to

www.govliquidation.com

and enter

locomotive

in the Search box, you'll see the two IH locomotives for sale. One is USN 65-00307, a GE 80-ton, and the other is USA 2037, an EMD SW8 that was acquired from the Army at Aberdeen Proving Ground a few years ago but never renumbered for USN or used.

How will the locos leave Indian Head? Over existing rail/special move?
What will happen to the rest of the rolling stock at IH? Some cars still exist.
Are there any of the old Dinner Train cars left on base? At one time there
were a bunch. Did the operator take them all out?
When will the rail in Charles County be pulled? Any chance of motor/speeder
trips befoe that happens?
Any chance of an operator for the County? Excursions? Ala WM rail/trail?

Inquiring minds want to know.

Most likely the locomotives will leave the base via heavy truck. This is not a big problem for the 80-ton, but the SW8 will probably have to be dismantled into smaller parts.

The track has not received maintenance in years and there are quite a few significant washouts along the route. Anyone wishing to move the locomotives via rail would need to fill the washouts as well as correct other track problems.

The old Navy rolling stock on the base is all of Korean War vintage, if not older - much older. For decades many, if not most, of the boxcars have served as static storage rooms for the buildings next to which they are parked. When the base gets around to pulling up the rail on the base itself (not part of the current action involving the local county), these old cars are probably going to be cut up for scrap.

The dinner train cars are gone from the base, but there are six at the White Plains interchange. These are in bad condition and reportedly turned over to the county by the Navy, having been left where they are for years by the defunct dinner train operator. Reportedly CSX will not accept any of the operator's ex-LIRR in interchange, effective stranding any parked on spurs off of CSX. The county would like to see the cars go and would probably give them away to anyone who offers to truck them out, since their scrap value may be less than the expense of cutting them up.

The county intends to move quickly and take advantage of the favorable market for scrap steel, so the rails will probably come up in February 2007.

Anyone going down the line now with a speeder would have to content with some serious washouts under the rail.

The county has absolutely no interest in operating a railroad similar to the WM Scenic Railroad. The rail line is a goner.

Bidding for the two locomotives at IH ended at 5 p.m. on Friday. At 3 p.m. the bid on the GE 80-ton was at $41,000, but two hours later it ended at $121,000. The SW8 reported went for $41,000 by closing time. No word yet on which company or companies bought them.

A Feb 9 article in a Southern Maryland newspaper titled “Alcoa officials tour potential plant location” notes the power company is seriously looking at building a coal-fired power plant on leased land at the naval base. For further information, see the following articles listed below in reverse chronological order.

http://somdnews.com/stories/020907/recb ... 2095.shtml

http://www.somdnews.com/stories/020207/ ... 2110.shtml

http://www.somdnews.com/stories/013107/ ... 2086.shtml

http://www.somdnews.com/stories/012407/ ... 2133.shtml

http://www.somdnews.com/stories/122906/ ... 2087.shtml

Unless the plan calls for shipping coal via numerous daily trucks over Charles County roads, this would appear to collide with simultaneous plans to pull up the tracks in favor of a trail. Art Audley’s Jan 31 letter to the editor (click on the link below) addresses this point well.

http://www.somdnews.com/stories/013107/ ... 2120.shtml

A local area resident reported seeing a recent televised county government hearing on a public broadcasting TV channel at which these issues surfaced. Although the county’s parks and recreation office still wants to proceed with pulling up the tracks, reportedly that’s been put on hold for 120 days while the power plant proposal remains under consideration. Could the rail line be saved for future coal shipments? Stay tuned.

Thanks go to Art Audley for today's update:

http://www.somdnews.com/stories/022107/ ... 2137.shtml

Power plant might nix hiker/biker trail
by Nancy Bromley McConaty, Staff Writer

Charles County's plan to transform 13 miles of abandoned railroad tracks into a hiker/biker and equestrian trail might go up in smoke if the rail line has to be reactivated to haul coal to an electric plant proposed for the Naval Support Facility Indian Head.

Alcoa Inc. is proposing to build a 950-megawatt coal-fired plant on the base to supply electricity for the company's Frederick County aluminum smelter. If approved, the company would need to transport coal to fire the facility --- which is where the now-defunct White Plains rail line comes in.

Alcoa officials are studying the feasibility of reactivating the rail line to transport coal to the plant, said Charles County commissioners' President F. Wayne Cooper (D). The only other option would be to barge coal to the facility.

"Right now there are so many unknowns; we're playing it by ear," Cooper said. "There are still some unanswered questions."

Alcoa officials, who toured the potential plant site earlier this month, have told the county commissioners that they will know if the rail line will be needed to transport coal to the facility within 90 to 120 days, Cooper said. Officials have said negotiations on the proposed plant are in the preliminary stage.

Cooper hopes the rail line can be saved for the hiker/biker and equestrian trail. The project was put out to bid recently, but the rail lines are still intact, he added. "I hope that we can work it out so we can make it into a hiker/biker trail," he said.

The National Park Service's Land to Parks program transferred-at no cost-the 13.4 miles of railroad tracks to the county in October.

The trail would allow residents and visitors to walk, bicycle or ride horses through the Mattawoman Creek watershed.

Charles County Commissioner Reuben B. Collins II (D) said it is wise for the county to put the project on hold until Alcoa can figure out the best way to transport coal to the Indian Head facility.

"I'm always willing to wait so I can feel confident that I know all of the facts before pursuing this. That's only wise," he said.

The tracks condition could be an issue, said Del. Sally Y. Jameson (D-Charles).

"A major concern is the level of maintenance the tracks would require," she said. "It would take a tremendous amount of effort to upgrade the line to transport coal."

Cooper said the county would have to turn the rail line back over to the federal government if Alcoa decides bringing coal by rail would be the best option.

"The rail lines would have to have quite a bit of work done to them before coal could be hauled on them," he said. "Some spots along the line are real narrow, and water comes up to the bank where some of the rails are. We were going to have to fill some spots in if we turn it into a trail."

The estimated $1 billion plant could bring up to 200 permanent jobs to the county along with a stable energy supply and additional tax revenues, according to county economic development officials.

The facility also aims to help jumpstart economic development in the western portion of the county and protect the Indian Head installation from future base realignment and closure decisions, according to county officials.

Del. Murray Levy (D-Charles) said it would be disappointing if the county cannot transform the rail line into a trail system.

"It's something that the county has worked on for a very long time, but having an adequate supply of electricity certainly takes precedence over using the line for a trail," he said.

Staff writer Alan Brody contributed to this report. E-mail Nancy Bromley McConaty at [email protected].

How can I protest this? This line should be kept because these areas are going so fast, they might need MARC service.

There is no local government interest in using the line for commuter purposes. For over a decade the county has, instead, been interested in converting the line into a trail. Its east-west route through a largely unpopulated area, instead of running north toward DC, does not make it a likely candidate for commuter service. Its best bet for survival is if Alcoa states it wants to use the line for coal shipments.

Greg-to give you a little background on this line:

The railroad at the base in Indian Head, originally known as the "Naval Propellant Plant" was what is know as an "orphan" railroad. The line did not have a rail connection to the outside world and all rail traffic was brought in to the base by barge. Locomotives were electric engines, powered by overhead lines, to negate the danger of fire or explosion started by cinders, if steam locos were used.

(If you can find a copy of Fred Westing's Locomotives That Baldwin Built, there is one small photo of a four-wheeled locomotive with trolley pole for electricity collection, lettered "Naval Propellant Plant" that served on the Indian Head base.)

World War I necessitated the need for a direct rail connection to the outside world and the line was constructed from Indian Head to the, then, Pennsylvania Railroad in White Plains, completed in 1917. In fact, this point is still called "Indian Head Junction" or NAV on the Pope's Creek line.

John Wearmouth's history of the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad says that this line was actually built by German POW's and quotes a woman who claims, that as a young girl, she sold sandwiches to the prisoners who were constructing the line.

There are no stations on the line and only two sidings that I'm aware of, one in Indian Head outside the base and the other on the north side of the Route 225 crossing. As this line was built by the government to connect the base with the PRR, there was no other purpose for the line.

As RailVet has already stated, there is really no need for commuter rail here (at least until the builders and developers have sold off every square inch of Charles County for housing developments, which will probably take another decade or two).

The conversion to a hiking/biking and equestrian trail had been scheduled to begin in February of this year. However, the announcement that Alcoa was planning on building a power plant on the base has given the line a reprieve, at least until the end of June, when a final decision is to be made. If Alcoa decides to make use of the line for coal shipments there is plenty of trackwork that will need to be done before trains can start using the line again.

Here's a link to a discussion on this line that is in the Military, Industrial and Shortline Railroads forum. My post includes a link to Patrick Phelan's Pope's Creek website showing photos of the line when it was hosting the short lived "Indian Head Central" excursion/dinner train.

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=22199

I know both pieces of equipment: The GE 80 Ton and the Coaches are on sale from Ozark Mountain Railcar......

Engineer James wrote:I know both pieces of equipment: The GE 80 Ton and the Coaches are on sale from Ozark Mountain Railcar......

I'm afraid you're mistaken, James-the GE 80 ton locomotive in this discussion has been sold to a buyer in Las Vegas, NV. It is in much better condition than the one shown at the Ozark Mountain Railcar site. The other piece of equipment we mentioned was an ex-U.S. Army SW-8 which is destinied to go to Florida.

The ex-LIRR cars shown at the OMR site are not the ones in question either...

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=35395

I checked the Ozark Mountain Railcar website and found a single ex-USN GE 80-ton for sale. This one is described as having "spent its entire life at Quonset Point, Davisville, RI." This would make it USN 65-00351, while the locomotive at Indian Head is USN 65-00307.

The buyers of the SW8 at Indian Head will reportedly be in town the week of April 9 and may try to move the locomotives on the 13th and 14th. The SW8 is planned to travel by rail (after being trucked to an active rail line), but the GE 80-ton will go all the way to its new destination by truck.

Update on the locomotives. The buyer of the SW8 had planned to move the locomotive to Waldorf, home to stranded ex-LIRR cars. The track's owner, American Aggregates, has said no. Reportedly they're still annoyed with being stuck with the ex-LIRR cars and won't agree to another third party using the tracks. The 84 Lumber tracks are near the IH interchange but 84 Lumber has said the tracks haven't been used in years, so they're not going to clear them for use. The buyer is now planning to move the SW8 all the way to Benning Yard.

Reportedly a crew from the buyer's company will arrive in town on Sunday evening (April 15) and spend the next two days getting the SW8 and GE 80-ton ready for movement on Wednesday (April 18). I'll post more information as I receive it.

I contact a naval public affairs official regarding the movement of the locomotives (last reportedly to take place in nine days) and received this reponse: "A date has not been confirmed yet, pending submission and approval of required safety plans. When we have an approved date, I will let you know what our media access/coverage plan will be."

I received the earlier update from someone in contact with the buyer, but apparently that information doesn't square with the latest word from the Navy. I'll let everyone know when the real, sure-fire, absolutely-true movement date is announced.