York abandonment (11/02/2020)

I was was perusing the STB website here: https://prod.stb.gov/proceedings-actions/filings/
and saw a filing from the "York Railway Company" on Docket # AB_1308_0_X
This should be the direct link: https://dcms-external.s3.amazonaws.com/ ... 301241.pdf

I'm not familiar with the lines down there, but this is the text of what is being abandoned:

(1) Between at or near mile post 20.07, in the Village of Bair, PA in West Manchester Township to at or near mile post 23.3, in the Borough of Spring Grove, PA; and
(2) Between at or near mile post 24.10, near Spring Grove, PA in Jackson Township, to at or near mile post 29.46, near Hanover, PA in Heidelberg Township.

They also say:

The Subject Line has not been used to provide rail service for 16 years, since September 2004.

And here is a picture of the map from the filing.


Just though I'd share.

This line was once apart of the PRR Fredrick Secondary, which ran from York, Pa to Fredrick, Maryland. In 1972, Hurricane Anges took out the bridge over the Monocacy River, cutting service from Walkersville to Fredrick. In 1976 when Conrail was first starting up, the entire line was bought by the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad. They only operated it for a year, soon selling the line from Taneytown to Walkersville to the Maryland Midland Railroad, keeping the line from York to Hanover, and abandoning the rest. In the early 90s, the line from Walkersville to Fredrick was restored by the Walkersville Southern Railroad, a tourist line. The MMID then sold the line from Walkersville to Woodsboro to the WS when business on that end dried up. In 1999 the remnants of the Maryland & Pennsylvania, which by that point consisted only off the ex-PRR Hanover to York portion, was merged into York Rail (which consists of the former WM between Hanover and York), forming the York Railway. The York Railway was then sold to G&W, which brings us to today.

The York Railway still has a fair amount of business, it's just that the lines in grey have had no customers (which are the lines they want to abandon). After having no traffic on lines that are directly parallel to ones that do, it only makes sense.

Thanks for the extra information about the lines in question.
I was curious why there seemed to be parallel lines, so I figured that they were originally built by two different railroads.
Unfortunately, as you said, there isn't much reason to keep the trackage if there are no customers on the line, and also a parallel route.

A few more details: In the map at the beginning of the thread, the yellow line from NW of Hanover through Hanover to Porters and then to the SE is the former Hanover subdivision of the Western Maryland, which connected to the WM main on both ends. WM had a branch from Porters to York, which is the remaining orange line that goes through Spring Grove and Thomasville in the map.