RAILFAN GUIDES HOME RAILROAD SIGNALS HOME
This page will cover the stations of the Baltimore Light Rail System
starting in Hunt Valley MD, the northern terminus of the system, progressing
south to the Cromwell and BWI stations at the southern end. This guide
will also cover the grade crossings.
Hunt Valley Station
GPS Coordinates: 39.496289, -76.654300
One of three stations on "someone else's" property, the other two being Penn
Station and the BWI station. This station is on the grounds of the Hunt
Valley Mall, and the "new" owners, who bought the mall after the light rail came
here, had wished the station was an integral part of the mall instead of at the
perimeter, something on the order of the Mall of America in Minneapolis MN.
The Hunt Valley station, being the end of the line, has room for two
additional 3-pack trains beyond the station platforms. Movements out of the
tail tracks is controlled by a Pennsylvania RR style dwarf PL signal, an atypical
signal for light rail systems. If you want to discover what a PL signal is, check
out my PL page here.
A couple of shots of 5052 laying over at Hunt Valley on a snowy evening.
Shawan Road
Schilling & Pepper Roads
A SB above, and a NB to Hunt Valley below.
Coming up from Shawan Rd
Pepper Road Station
GPS Coordinates: 39.492159, -76.656134
Too bad we didn't have light rail in the industrial park back in the 1978-1980
timeframe, I worked in the building right next to the station! :-)
Back then, it was Westinghouse B21.
McCormick Road & Schilling Circle
SB train getting ready to cross McCormick Rd
NB train heading to Hunt Valley - the pictures above illustrate why they usually have plastic bags over the
couplers during the snowy days!
McCormick Road Station
GPS Coordinates: 39.489566, -76.659062
McCormick Spices used to own most of the land and buildings in the Hunt Valley
Industrial Park at one time, say, back in the 1980's when I worked at
Westinghouse, and "we" leased the buildings from them at an average price of
around $50-60K a month.
NB train entering the McCormick station.
Schilling Circle
Along Gilroy Road #1
The "no right turn" and "no left turn" signs along Gilroy Rd make it a pretty cool spot to take pictures
Gilroy Road Station
GPS Coordinates: 39.489566, -76.659062
In the other aerial view from Google, you can see one of the McCormick plants of
Hunt Valley. Until the 90's or so, there was still a siding servicing the
McCormick plant which came off the old PRR Hunt Valley branch prior to the light
rail "coming thru town".
Left-a SB...and a NB train coming into and leaving the Gilroy station
Both
NB signals for trains going into the single track have the green position
blanked out, and the green put in the middle - and that seems like a lot of tilt
to me since the signals are already above the operator's seat.
Warren Road Station
GPS Coordinates:
A couple of trains at Warren Rd: NB, and 3 SB's
Beaver Dam Road
The test train checking for catenary alignment before the HV extention opened.
Warren Road
This is where the light rail system veers off from what used to the Pennsy's
line to York and Harrisburg PA. Hurricane Agnes in 1972 wiped out most of
the track that was at or near the stream that the R-O-W followed, and the
financially strapped Penn Central could not rebuild the line... so we lost an
important part of our railroad history that year!!! :-) The track the line
follows used to be a branch line into the industrial park. There is still
a small tail track here, and up until 2004, NS used it to park their engines and
train for the day, if it got "stuck" up here because there was not enough time
for their train to make it back down to the interchange adjacent to the light
rail shops. The end of 2004 also brought the end of freight service
into Cockeysville, as the double tracking project got started come January 1st
of 2005, and freight service never resumed.
Trains have to slow down here, a lot, to take the curve going from the old
Pennsy mainline, to the industrial trackage that served the industrial park, so
there is ample opportunity to get pictures as it takes the curve. I have
parked in the BGE driveway for a short while without anyone ever getting upset
or yelling at me.
Grainy scans of prints of a test train prior to the opening of the HV extension around 1996
Passing the Texas Landfill/Transfer Station
Over the years, I've dumped a lot of my stuff in here, which is now sitting
at the bottom of this old landfill. Since probably 1990 or so, it has been
a transfer station and starting in maybe 2000 or so, a recycle sorting station.
I wonder if we could do an archeological dig to see what we can come up with!!!???
Industry Lane
I dunno, in an effort to make this grade crossing as "safe" as possible, it
has become one of the worst to get across in terms of waiting. There are
so many precautions they have programmed into the software, that you can easily
spend 3 or 4 minutes sitting there while everything times out for getting cars
already on the move off the tracks, then waiting for the approaching train to
finally get there and cross... and if another train comes from the other
direction, you might as well set your alarm for snooze :-) :-)
Along Beaver Dam Road
A couple from back in 2005 when the double tracking was in process. The siding into the quarry was still in place at the time.
the "Quarry"
The "Texas Quarry" cannot be seen from the
Light Rail, but it is still worth mentioning. When we first moved into
the area back in 1966, it was then owned by Harry T. Campbell.
Campbell's also owned a large tract of land over by Whitemarsh Mall,
where the business' to the east of I-95 are now... someone made a bunch of money!
Anyways, several things came out of this
quarry that make it worth mentioning:
One - the marble used to build the Washington Monument in Washington DC came from here,
and years ago when they fixed up the monument, they came back here for matching marble.
Two - the white dust used on gum, I believe it is Calcium Carbonate, is mined from the hole,
Three - The marble used for the first
stringers/sleepers of the Baltimore & Susquehanna RR came
from here, not much of a surprise since the quarry and tracks are right next to each other.
Back in the very early 70's, Campbell's had a family day, and I made sure I got there for a
tour as my first wife's father was a dozer operator in the pit! :-) Very cool hole!
The Timonium Pocket Track by Lowe's and Sam's Club
GPS Coordinates: 39.458676, -76.641066
At Pocket Track: SB coming thru (L); Turnaround entering pocket; and NB; SB leaving the pocket track area.
At Pocket Track: Signals, looking south (L), and north
Close-ups of signals at the Pocket Track
under Padonia Road
At Padonia Rd: NB, SB going around pocket track, SB back on main line.
Timonium Station
GPS Coordinates: 39.448547, -76.634921
The two parking areas on the left were sold off by the MTA, and in early 2020, construction was started on several buildings.
When the light rail system originally opened, this was the northernmost station,
and had a spring switch leading into a tail track for the turn-around..
Before the extension to Hunt Valley was opened.
Timonium Road
Around 1990, when the original construction of the light rail line was taking place.
The siding off to the left was for Saco Lumber, which moved up to Cockeysville shortly after. 84 Lumber is still there.
The crossing was again closed in 2005 for the double tracking project, dunno why, they already had 2 tracks at the crossing....
Timonium Business Park Station
GPS Coordinates: 39.433615, -76.628260
Not a very busy station most of the time.
Timonium Business Park Road
There are a couple of good places to eat nearby, one of them is just a hundred feet from the station, the Bluestone.
Lutherville Station
GPS Coordinates: 39.428849, -76.627035
From here, south to the Falls Road station, is the longest uninterrupted "run"
on the system, about 4.3 miles.
Seminary Avenue
"We" are very lucky, in that very few have died as a result of trying to beat
the train at a grade crossing on the Baltimore System, but here, around 2000 or
so, someone in a Jeep tried to go around the gates and got hit. RIP.
The Former PRR Lutherville Station
GPS Coordinates: 39.424087, -76.629415
As of June 2020, the station was for sale.....
Seminary Avenue/Lutherville
under the Beltway and the Crossovers
In the shot below, you can see how the MTA put in an additional sound barrier by
moving the tracks over by about 15 feet. I'm not sure how much doing so
really reduces the sound level to go to all that trouble of putting a "crick" in
the tracks.... and then if you look further down the tracks in that straight
stretch where my house is, and they had room to move the tracks to the other
side to get them further way from our houses, they didn't, so again, what was
the point?
April 18th, 2005, as work on the double tracking continues.....
The Former PRR Riderwood Station
GPS Coordinates:
at CM N525
The tracks here cross a stream that is one of two main feeds for Lake Roland,
the bridge it goes over dates to the 1800's. It is a steel girder bridge,
and has always had two spans on it, even tho for the first half of the systems
life, until 2005 when they double tracked the north end, light rail was only a
single track until it hit an interlocking at the Beltway and became two tracks.
Just south of here, back in the Pennsy days up until the late 50's or early
60's, the Pennsy had three tracks going thru Ruxton.
the Joppa Road "Tunnels"
along Bellona Avenue
A "Ruxton" station would have been put in somewhere along here, and during the
planning process, the area residents complained loudly enough that the MTA
listened.... so now you can enjoy a 4 mile ride thru some of the nicer sections
of the line! Crime was the main reason cited for not wanting a station
here, and seeing what happened in Lutherville when the line opened there, no-one
can blame them.
at Lake Roland and the Robert E. Lee Park
During late April and May 2015, I noticed
that all the trains passing behind my house were on the SB track, so on
Cinqo de Mayo day, I went for a ride down to the Falls Road station, and
found that the MTA had closed off the NB (northbound) side because of the
rock outcropping. Dunno why (as of this day) they still had the NB side
closed, but it obviously concerns "them".
Falls Road Station
GPS Coordinates: 39.376602, -76.649733
Access to the expansive Lake Roland area in what used to be the Robert E. Lee
park is easy from the parking lot.
Area residents, weary of the foot traffic and crime, had the light rail folks
put in a barrier so you can't get to the business' just seen at the top of the
aerial shot without walking down to the Falls Road bridge over the tracks and
walking about 5 times the distance :-(
Notice it's on the "wrong" side.
Detail pictures from May 2015:
Disclaimers:
I love trains, and I love signals. I am not an expert. My webpages reflect what I find on the topic of the page. This is something I have fun with while
trying to help others.
Please Note: Since the main focus of my two websites is railroad signals, the railfan guides are oriented towards the signal fan being able to locate them.
For those of you into the modeling aspect of our hobby, my indexa page has a list of almost everything railroad oriented
I can think of to provide you with at least a few pictures to help you detail your pike.
If this is a railfan page, every effort has been made to make sure that the information contained on this map and in this railfan guide is correct. Once in a while,
an error may creep in :-)
My philosophy: Pictures and maps are worth a thousand words, especially for railfanning. Text descriptions only get you so far, especially if you get lost or
disoriented. Take along good maps.... a GPS is OK to get somewhere, but maps are still better if you get lost! I belong to AAA, which allows you to get
local maps for free when you visit the local branches. ADC puts out a nice series of county maps for the Washington DC area, but their state maps do not have the
railroads on them. If you can find em, I like the National Geographic map book of the U.S..... good, clear, and concise graphics, and they do a really good job
of showing you where tourist type attractions are, although they too lack the railroads. Other notes about specific areas will show up on that page if known.
Aerial shots were taken from either Google or Bing Maps as noted. Screen captures are made
with Snagit, a Techsmith product... a great tool if you have never used it!
By the way, floobydust is a term I picked up 30-40 years ago from a National Semiconductor data book, and means miscellaneous
and/or other stuff.
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