Visit to DC

Good day;
I'm a midwestern railfan and I'm going to be in DC from 12/31 to 1/2/08. While not in the dark about DC commuter systems and railfanning, does anybody want to share something I shouldn't miss? I was thinking about riding a Penn Line express set out and back on the morning of 1/2. In the past I've spent some time at Union Station and New Carrolton, and rode the metro. I'll be arriving and leaving on the Capitol Limited.

edit: I just visited the MARC website. Did a fifth grader make that site? If so, who gave the kid a little too much cough syrup? </rant>

What train would one advise to take on the penn line in order to experience the 125mph potential, if I arrive on 12/31 (monday) and leave 1/2 (wednesday).

If you go to Alexandrea, VA, try to stay at the Embassy Suites Hotel and get a window overlooking the tracks. You get to see tons of Metro, Amtrak, CSX, and VRE. Add the happy hour with snacks and beer and its marvelous. And you can also post to Railroad.Net as they have 5 computers! Have a great time! lirr415-Peter

I'd consider making a trip to Alexandria Union Station; this station is served by Amtrak and VRE and is adjacent to the King Street Metro station. The station is small but attractive-looking, and it is next to the truly impressive Washington Masonic Memorial. Use the Metro Yellow Line to get out there; you get to ride on the bridge over the Potomac River, which gives you some nice views of DC.

If you are going to go to Baltimore, you might as well use the Penn Line in one direction and the Camden Line in the other direction. To get from the Penn Line to the Camden Line, take the Baltimore light rail shuttle from Penn Station to the Mount Royal/University of Baltimore stop (or walk over there; it is less than a 5 minute walk from Penn Station). Then take the light rail south to the Camden Yards stop, which is on the opposite side of the warehouse outside of Oriole Park at Camden Yards. (Obviously you do the reverse if you use the Camden Line traveling to Baltimore.) You'll get to experience the annoyance of the light rail's on-street running with no signal preemption on the west side of downtown Baltimore (Howard Street). The light rail runs through a still-struggling part of Baltimore, especially in the northern part of downtown. This rail line connects with the Baltimore Metro Subway at the Lexington Market stations for both lines; the connection is neither obvious nor well-marked. From the light rail the subway station is one short block to the west.

In addition to what I noted above, there are a couple other locations of potential interest along/near the light rail segment you could use between Penn Station and Camden Station. At the aforementioned Mount Royal light rail station, you can see the north access to the important Howard Street tunnel. Down near Camden Station is M&T Bank Stadium (or as I like to call it, the Big Purple Playpen), home of the Baltimore Ravens. The stadium is adjacent to the next station south from Camden Yards on the light rail, Hamburg Street (not to mention across the parking lot from OPACY). Both the light rail and the Camden Line run next to the stadium.

Baltimore Penn Station itself is surprisingly small for such an important station; it is nowhere near as large as Washington Union Station, Philadelphia 30th Street Station, or Chicago Union Station (the last of which I got to see for the first time a couple weeks ago). The architecture is nice though. It is moderately similar to and somewhat larger than the Lancaster train station some 60 miles to the north-northeast. The station has a newsstand, a restaurant/bar, and a couple other small-scale amenities. From a train line perspective, the neatest thing about the station is you may have the opportunity to see an Amtrak Acela or Regional, a MARC train, and the light rail shuttle at the station at the same time. To get the best view of this, use the light rail shuttle and walk down to the far end of the platform. The light rail track is the one closest to the station's main lobby. You can also view some trains from outside the station along St. Paul Street (street east of the station); there are shields blocking part of the view but if you walk far enough north on the street, you can look down at the through tracks/trains at the station. Finally, one of the nicer, more arty neighborhoods in Baltimore, Mount Vernon, is immediately south of the station on the other side of Interstate 83 (that road is in a cut and not a barrier to north-south movement). Don't venture too far north of the station though; you'll enter one of the many rough parts of Baltimore.

Back to Washington, if you are a sports fan, two other things to check out that are rail-related are A) the Orange/Blue Line's descent from elevated to subway just outside RFK Stadium (you cannot miss the stadium, the lines approach the stadium from the northeast and then curve to the left, going underground to the stadium's west just before you reach the stadium) and B) the Washington Nationals' new ballpark being built near the Green Line Navy Yard station. The ballpark itself is a couple blocks south of the station.

If you were going to be here the day after new years I would offer you a tour of MTA.

If your renting a car, Halethorpe MARC station and St. Dennis MARC station provide good views of trains, and the local cops tend to be friendly towards rail fans.

Unfortunately, a lot of railfan sites in Baltimore are in awful neighborhoods.

Aberdeen Station is nice too.

There's a trolly museum on Falls road right before Penn Station, right across Jones falls river is the abandoned Northern Central ROW. One track still exists leading up to an NS loading yard. It sees one train every Friday early in the morning. I remember every Friday the light rail would pass it.

At that location, the B&O crosses over the Jones Falls on a high bridge.

Due to the Howard Street Tunnel clearance, you will see much more action south of Baltimore.

No more than 5 MARC trains go North of Penn Station due to track availability so there is more action south of Baltimore.

Halethorpe/St. Dennis is a nice working class community, at St. Dennis you may encounter a passionate rail photographer, a videographer from Columbia and an older gentleman who was an engineer on the B&O during steam time and will talk about cooking eggs in the firebox. I haven't seen him since it got colder though. St. Dennis is protected by interlocking signals so you can see when northbound movements are coming.

One other site to mention is Martins Airport MARC station. You can see about 1 mile in each direction on the NEC, as well as an automatic signal (it won't tell you anything except which tracks trains may be on though)

They are Amtrak PRR style (colored position lights)

If your looking for B&O CPL's, there are some at Dorsey MARC station and in Laurel MD. These are def worth seeing as CSX is replacing them./

Speaking of Baltimore light rail, can any of you local experts tell me whether NS is still operating freight over the north end to Cockeysville? It was suspended during the double-tracking project and, immediately afterward, NS (with MTA's prodding) applied to abandon it. The case was held up by the infamous James Riffin, but in any event I understand that NS never resumed the freight operationan after the line was re-opened. True??

Union Station in DC is worth a visit. It's not the greatest for watching trains come and go but it's a neat place, and is a good place to hop a train to where-ever. The New York Ave. Red Line Metro stop IS a great place to watch from. There is a non-stop parade of movement between the coach yards and the station, and the variety is amazing MARC, Metro, Amtrak, and VRE traffic),

If it's train-watching you want, you can find almost anything in the greater DC area. CSX runs a good deal of freight on the Metropolitan and Capital Subdivisions (Good CSX watching can be had at the Riverdale station on the Camden Line), Amtrak's Northeast Corridor is exceptionally busy around rush hour (10+ trains an hour from 5pm to 7pm) on weekdays, and Washington's METRO system is extensive and interesting. I believe Foggy Bottom has one of the tallest escalators in the world!

Other landmarks worth the trip include:

Point of Rocks MD - A great scenic location (probably an hour from DC) and the junction of the Old Main and Metro subs. Harper's Ferry WV is not far from there and is also very nice.

The Thomas Viaduct - Located just south of Baltimore in Patapsco park, the stone arched viaduct has been in place and in use for over 170 years. Quite a sight!

Susquehanna River Bridge - About 30 minutes north of Baltimore is the big bridge over the river at Perryville/Havre de Grace. You'll see the same Amtrak traffic as you will between DC and Baltimore, though with substantially less MARC traffic.

If it were me, I'd spend the day poking around the Camden Line up to Baltimore, switch to the Penn Line for a thrill ride down the corridor, getting off at the Seabrook station for rush hour to watch the parade. You might even get lucky and catch the Pope's Creek empty coal train on the NEC returning to Benning Yard.

If you'd like any additional information about any of these places, or others specifically, you can personal message me. You can also find pictures taken at each of these locations at railpictures.net.

I didn't say this earlier because Tadman stated he's been there previously, but Washington Union Station to me is the nicest train station I've ever been in, nicer than Grand Central Terminal, 30th Street Station, or Chicago Union Station (the last of which was honestly a big disappointment, at least inside, when I finally got to visit it a couple weeks ago). WUS doesn't have a grand hall like GCT or 30th St., but its external architecture is really attractive and the inside of the building is grand-looking. I like the fact the station has a lot of amenities too.

NS does not operate freights to Cockysville anymore. The MTA found it too damaging to the rails, which are maintained for the LRV's to have full sized locomotives and cars running.

MTA pays for cargo to be unloaded at the NS loading facility on North Ave and trucked the final distance.

The tracks come from the NEC up the old NCR and then cross the light rail backing up then entering the yard.

In Cockysville there are about 5 yards of the original NCR still existing.

tadman
Yesterday (Friday) I rode the Camden Line from DC up to Baltimore and then took the Penn Line back. I would definitely recommend riding the Camden Line. It's a more interesting ride -- often freight traffic up near Savage -- plus it's the old B&O. Very historic.

If you take the 8:15 AM Camden train out of Washington you should be able to make a quick connection to Balt. Penn Station and the 9:50 AM Marc Penn Line train back to DC. There is now a direct shuttle service from Camden Yards to Penn Station. That's what I did and I really enjoyed it.

One thing, if you decide to do it, don't waste any time at Camden getting on the light rail train. There seems to be a lull in service around 9:15 AM just as the Marc Camden train arrives. I once missed the first connecting train, had to wait 20 minutes for the next light rail train and missed the Penn Line train. That meant an hour wait for the next one.

Also, the ticket machine for the Light Rail at Camden is located at the Marc station house, not on the light rail platform. It's dead ahead of you when you get off Marc.

And you can buy your Marc tickets from any Amtrak Quik Ticket machine in DC or Baltimore.

Njoy!! tommy

Tad rereading your question I realize you also asked about which Marc train to ride that makes 125 mph.

Obviously it would be a Penn Line train, but not one of the diesel ones, that's for sure! Those diesels accelerate pretty good but I can't see any of those 40-year old rebuilt EMDs hitting one-two-five. I could be wrong though. Anyone know for certain??

In fact I wonder if any of the Marc trains hit that speed? But if they do it might be a train like 406 -- the 7:21 AM out of Washington -- running nonstop to Baltimore (about 40 miles) in just 32 minutes. That's only a minute slower than an Acela train!

But since you won't really know when (or if) you hit 125, I'd still go north on the old B&O!!

Hey guys, thanks for your kind suggestions - the train riding was limited to the Metro, other than my trip out/back on the capitol. I wanted to ride the NEC, but I just didn't have the time. I really appreciate the input though, and also had a teriffic Amtrak ride.

I also wanted to mention a highlight of my trip - I noticed some stored MARC heritage coaches and RDC's in the Brunswick yard - dunno if that's been mentioned on this forum before, but I'm surprised they weren't snapped up by some tourist road long ago.