Forgotten Lands, Places and Transit

I try my best on this blog to stay out of current political matters and almost always stay out of social issues. That said, I cannot stay about the threats to the rails to trails movement as we know it. Across the United States, there are old rail corridors that never quite disappeared. We have visited many of them on this blog: lines where rusted steel and weed-choked ballast once marked an ending, now quietly repurposed into trails filled with movement and life. These are   rail-trails , places where locomotives once thundered and where today you are more likely to hear conversation, bicycle chains, or the crunch of gravel underfoot. They have become connective tissue for places long left on the margins, stitching together urban neighborhoods, suburban downtowns, and rural villages that lost their rail service generations ago. In doing so, they have offered something rare in modern infrastructure: a second chance at connection, memory, and renewal. Walking the Wabash Railro...

The New Castle and Frenchtown Turnpike and Railroad Company (NC&F) was a pioneer in the history of American railroads. It was opened in 1831, making it the first railroad in Delaware and one of the first in the US. It ran for about 16 miles from New Castle, Delaware, on the Delaware River, to Old Frenchtown Wharf , Maryland, on the Chesapeake Bay.  It was intended to provide a faster and cheaper alternative to the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, which opened in 1829 and connected the same two bodies of water. However, the NC&F faced competition from other railroads and canals in the region, and eventually became obsolete and abandoned. ( Right of Way ) Some sources, myself included at times, have labeled this as the first railroad abandonment in the United States, being abandoned in 1859. However, it is not even the first right of way to be abandoned in the State of Delaware, as that distinction belongs to the Dulaney Railroad . One could argue that this was the first comm...

I am not a fan of I-97; the number, not the road itself. The road itself is a short but important connection between Baltimore and Annapolis, MD, but it exists as only a 17 mile freeway, shorter than most three digit interstates. In fact, it is by far the shortest primary interstate highway, that is, one with only two digits in its numbering, and while I-87 in North Carolina (sadly) exists; it is planned to connect to Norfolk, VA, along a corridor longer than 100 miles in length.  That numbering will almost certainly be an entire blog of its own, but today we're going to explore how I-97 came into being as the short connector route that it is today, and how it could be incorporated into a much longer route.  A state-named Northbound I-97 Mile Marker. Famartin, Wikipedia Commons  - 2018. I propose five alternatives in renumbering, although I'm certain none will be acted upon, it's been a fun exercise for road enthusiasts to fix issues with the Interstate Highway System, su...

This weekend, after a long hiatus due to the ongoing pandemic, we finally were able to hit the road and visit the nation's Capital, Washington D.C., as well as many other spots in the Mid-Atlantic Region. On the way back home, we crossed something off my bucket list by going on a railbiking tour. This particular one is located in Frostburg, MD. It's known as Tracks and Yaks , and runs on tracks that are also home to the Western Maryland Scenic Railway for about ten miles east of Frostburg. You ride the rails just east of Frostburg, Maryland on a custom bike.  A portion of the tracks where the GAP Trail crosses the WMSR and railbike right of way. I'm not sure if a better location exists for a rail biking excursion, since the tracks are almost entirely downhill, and exist not only along with the aforementioned WMSR, but are located adjacent to the Great Allegheny Passage Trail, and offer a few opportunities to see bikers and hikers along that trail. Just like the WMSR, it us...