Pennsy's Claremont Branch
All Photos by Adam Paul
Looking at the remnants of Pennsy's Claremont Branch today, it would seem hard to fathom that the area it served was once vibrant enough to generate enough business for two major railroads to vigorously compete for customers. The Claremont area, much of which is now called the Crossroads Industrial Park is now home to some localized industry and sees a decent amount of truck traffic and apparently no railhead traffic whatsoever. Though CSX trains routinely pass through the nearby Claremont Yard, the traffic generated by the Claremont area itself is nil.This is a far cry from a century ago, when Claremont was the location of Baltimore's sprawling stockyards, centered around Brunswick Street south of Wilkens Avenue. The industry and it's adjacent neighborhood sprang up in large thanks to the heavy workload provided to the yards by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, now operated by CSX Transportation. However, Baltimore's other major rail player, the Pennsylvania Railroad was no to be left out of the Claremont bonanza. In the late 19th Century, they constructed a branch leading from the mainline just east of the Catonsville Branch connection that craftily crept its way onto the B&O territory. Among the advantages of shipping via the PRR was undoubtedly the ability to reach New York City without interchanging.
However, the heyday of the Claremont Branch would eventually come to a close, particularly when MASH's hams left their old Dukeland Street facility. The exact date of abandonment of the Claremont is not yet known, but is assumed to be in either the late 1970s or early 1980s. The line today is largely overgrown, but otherwise intact, and might actually be passable by actual cars were it not for the vegetation.
The Claremont is not necessarily dead however. MARC is looking to rebuild the line in the next 10 years (including electrification) to allow access of Penn Line Trains into Camden Station, as well as allow for equipment moves between the Penn Line and a proposed MARC maintenance facility at Carroll Park. Time and money will only tell wether the Claremont will be reborn into new boom times, or continue to bust into a forgotten chapter of Baltimore railroad history.
SURVIVORS:
moving from West to East
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The bridge taking the Claremont Branch over Wilkens Avenue must have certainly been an impressive sight when adorned with a train!
Though heavily overgrown in spots, one can still detect the impressive heavy construction of the branch, as this view of the main shows.
The spur leading from this junction headed East-Northeast to meet to B&O at Claremont Yard. Another "mainline" track is buried in the scrub on the right.
One can't help but to wonder why this stretch of spur track is decidedly less overgrown than the "main" Did the Chessie System purchase it for their own access in later years?
This switch lever on the spur is still perfectly functional, though it proabaly hasn't seen a train in at least 20 years!
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