As some may know, I've long been fascinated by the little 11 mile branch line of the B&O that stretched from the Metropolitan Sub main in Silver Spring, MD to Georgetown in Washington, DC on the banks of the Potomac River.
Georgetown was a very industrial part of town - not any more - and the Georgetown Branch was quite an interesting operation. Lots of varied scenery and it is a shame it never became a tourist operation. I have LONG believed that a tourist train running from downtown Bethesda, MD, with a very active street scene to Georgetown - through the woods, the Dalecarlia Tunnel and literally right along the river would be a tourist gold mine. Sadly, the trail folks won out and the branch, when torn up in the 1990s, became one of the most popular rail-trails in the country.
There are lots of former B&O remnants around. The bridges over Bradley Bld. in Bethesda still bear the B&O Capital Dome emblems cast in the pillars, there are plenty of scraps of rail here and there, abandoned caboose/freight car frames cast off from derailments, mile markers, and much more.
I've long used Ben Sullivan's website for it's historical photo collection. It is the best of the best.
See a link to his website HERE - Railroading in Suburbia
I occasionally find it fun to run a re-created GB train on my layout. Tonight was no different. The new MTH B&O H10-44 switcher, a popular engine on the branch for many years pulled a few mixed cars and coal hoppers. The branch saw heavy coal traffic as the train was the primary source of fuel transportation for the Government's coal steam plant (still in G'town BTW).
Occasionally, I like to use GP9s and even other switchers. I never recall seeing it in operation (trains stopped running in the 1980s and even then were very sporadic) but I do recall lots of "artifacts" being visible - even more than the dozens around today some years ago.
