ROW parallel to Hillside Road in Baltimore County

Does anyone know anything about the long abandoned RR right-of-way which runs parallel to Hillside Road in Baltimore County?

I'm pretty sure this actually started somewhere around Garrison, MD, and continued east through the Green Spring Valley, eventually turning south and heading into Baltimore on the east side of Jones Falls stream.

As a small child I spent time poking around this area with my dad (I grew up nearby). I've been thinking about him a lot lately, and remembered this...

Here is a link to the location: http://goo.gl/maps/x7MA


Spidey!!!

That's the former PRR Greenspring Valley branch, which branched off the present Baltimore light rail line at Lake Roland and proceeded northwest, roughly following Falls Rd. to Brooklandville (where a station still survives), then across the Greenspring valley to Reisterstown Rd. at Garrison. It joined the Western Maryland main line a little west of Garrison.

The line had an interesting and varied history. It was built in the early 1830s by the Baltimore & Susquehanna, the predecessor of the Northern Central Ry., which itself was absorbed by the PRR. It was intended as the B&S's main line into Pennsylvania, but reached only as far as Owings Mills before the B&S was able to get a new Pennsylvania charter to build directly north through Timonium, Cockeysville, and York, PA. After the B&S reached York in 1838, the branch became redundant and lapsed into a semi-coma until it was used by the Western Maryland as its original entrance to Baltimore. That continued until 1873 when the WM built its own line to Fulton Jct. in Baltimore where it joined the PRR's new line from Washington. After that the branch became redundant again and remained simply a rural line with little traffic.

The line's story is well-covered in the book "Green Spring Accommodation," by Martin K. Van Horn and Robert L. Williams, published by Transportation Trails, Polo, IL, in 1996. It's worth trying to track down.

There is also a pretty decent segment on that line in the book "Baltimore's Light Rail Line"...or a title similar to that.

SemperFidelis wrote:There is also a pretty decent segment on that line in the book "Baltimore's Light Rail Line"...or a title similar to that.

Yep, that is a good book. I have it somewhere, it was a going away present from MTA.

Currently 11 copies for sale on Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Baltimores-Light- ... =1-1-spell

I was very impressed by that book. It had a depth of knowledge uncommon for that sort of publication.