| Baltimore Belt Line | |||
|---|---|---|---|
 B&O'soverhead third-rail system atGuilford Avenue in Baltimore, 1901, part of theBaltimore Belt Line. The central position of the overhead conductors was dictated by the many tunnels on the line: the∩-shaped rails were located at the highest point in the roof to give the most clearance[1] | |||
| Overview | |||
| Status | Operational | ||
| Owner | Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (Original) CSX Transportation (Current) | ||
| Locale | Baltimore,Maryland, United States | ||
| History | |||
| Electrified via overhead rail | 1895 | ||
| Electrification removed | 1952 | ||
| Technical | |||
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm)standard gauge | ||
| Electrification | formerly electrified | ||
| |||
TheBaltimore Belt Line was constructed inBaltimore, Maryland, by theBaltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in the early 1890s to connect the railroad to its new line toPhiladelphia andJersey City (the terminal servingNew York City). It included theHoward Street Tunnel, theMount Royal Station for B&O'sRoyal Blue Line passenger trains, and the first mainlinerailroad electrification in the United States. Today,CSX Transportation operates the line as part of itsBaltimore Terminal Subdivision.
From the 1830s to early 1870s, the B&O terminated in Baltimore, but offered passenger and freight service onward to New York via thePhiladelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B). The connection was unwieldy: train cars were pulled by horses on tracks laid on surface streets from the B&O station (first the Pratt Street Depot at Pratt and South Charles Streets, then after 1856,Camden Street Station) eastward alongEast Pratt Street past theharbor's waterfront piers to PW&B'sPresident Street Station (built 1849–1850) at President and Fleet Streets. Horses were used becausesteam locomotives were forbidden to run on downtown streets by ordinances passed by theBaltimore City Council in 1831, in the more primitive years of American railroading.[2]
In 1884, the PW&B was purchased by thePennsylvania Railroad (PRR), which promptly severed the B&O's connection to New York. Cut off from the Atlantic seaboard's main line, the B&O needed a new way to reach the New York market. It began to build its Philadelphia Branch (formally known as theBaltimore and Philadelphia Railroad) to connect to thePhiladelphia and Reading Railroad, which would connect with theCentral Railroad of New Jersey for B&O's New York service across theHudson River toManhattan. The combination would also provide a connection to theStaten Island Railway, which served as the terminal switching company for the B&O's New Yorkfreight service across theHudson River orUpper New York Bay toManhattan.
But the new line, which began in eastern Baltimore, needed a connection to the downtown terminal, and so the B&O conceived the Belt Line. In 1889,Charles F. Mayer became B&O president, and recruited young railroaderSamuel Rea to work on the new line as chief engineer.[3][4]
Connecting the new Philadelphia Branch to the rest of the B&O system was a considerable engineering challenge. A new surface line across the center of town was politically impossible and prohibitively expensive. Building around the outskirts of town would have required massiveregrading and bridging, as the terrain is extremely hilly and the line would cut across every watershed flowing into the harbor. As a temporary expedient, traffic was handled through Baltimore oncarfloats across thePatapsco River /Baltimore harbor and port fromCanton toLocust Point, but it was clear that a direct connection would have to be built.
The route the B&O chose started from the existing end of the track atCamden Street Station, at the west end of "The Basin" (modernInner Harbor) of the Northwest Branch of the Patapsco River. Atunnel was constructed directly under Howard Street, heading north–south until just before it crossed the existing PRR line.
At the north portal of the tunnel,Mount Royal was constructed between 1891 and 1896. The track then curved around the northwest corner of the center city going east, passed through six other (much shorter) tunnels, continuing across the northern outskirts of downtown, curving around the Northeast corner of the old City, finally heading southeast to meet the already constructed line just north of theCanton neighborhood and connecting with the East Coast route. The cost of construction drove the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad intobankruptcy shortly after the line opened in 1895, 68 years after the line was founded in 1827 as America's first passenger / freight railroad.
Initially there were plans to build three new stations in Baltimore, but concern for interference with freight haulage and expense eventually reduced this to a single station at Mount Royal Avenue, just west by theJones Falls stream, which opened on September 1, 1896. Lower-level platforms were added later at the east end of B&O's Camden Street Station in 1897.[2][5]
TheHoward Street Tunnel originally ran for 1.4 miles (2.3 km) underHoward Street in downtown Baltimore. The longest tunnel on the B&O's system, it took 2,400 workers four and a half years to build (1890–1895)[6] and cost $7 million (equivalent to more than $200 million in 2018).[7] The tunnel is brick-lined with iron-arched centerings. At the time of completion it was considered innovative for its use of electricity for illumination and powering oflocomotives. Inside the tunnel, there was an underground platform for trains serving Camden Station.
In the mid-1980s, the tunnel was extended southward by three-tenths of a mile (480 m) from its original Camden Station portal when the B&O successorCSX Transportation's mainline track east of theBaltimore & Ohio Warehouse at Camden Yards was covered over for construction ofInterstate 395.[8]
The Howard Street Tunnel is listed on theNational Register of Historic Places.[9]
By this time the Pennsylvania Railroad line through Baltimore and points south had been in operation for twenty years. Due to the built-up nature of the area traversed and the hilly terrain, much of its line through town was in tunnels, which posed severe ventilation problems. Large chimneys were constructed above the Pennsylvania line, in a not entirely successful attempt to disperse the fumes from thecoal-fired locomotives. However, by 1890 electric locomotion was beginning to appear possible, and in 1892 the B&O thus contracted withGeneral Electric (GE) for electric locomotives,powerhouse equipment, and an electrical distribution system.[5] This equipment was delivered beginning in 1895, and the first train pulled by anelectric locomotive operated through the Howard Street Tunnel on June 27, 1895.[10]
Thegrade on the electrified portion was downhill to Camden Station; therefore traffic heading southbound ("westbound", in B&O timetables), from Mount Royal Station, simply drifted through the tunnels. Since the engine was not working, the smoke produced was relatively light. Going upgrade northbound ("eastbound", in B&O timetables) the electric locomotives were coupled to the front of the train at Camden Station and pulled the entire train, including the steam locomotive, through the Howard Street tunnel. When northboundpassenger trains stopped at Mt. Royal Station at the north end of the tunnel, the electric locomotive was uncoupled. Northbound freight trains were pulled by electric locomotives for another two miles, until reaching Huntingdon Avenue in east Baltimore. There the steam locomotive closed its cylinder cocks, took up the load, and the electric locomotive uncoupled on the fly, accelerating ahead to a pocketsiding between the tracks.[5]
General Electric installedrotary converters in B&O's powerhouse near Mt. Royal Station, having a combined capacity of 5,000kW to convert 13,200-volt, 3 phase, 25-cycleAC to 675 voltsDC. In 1936, these rotary converters were replaced bymercury arc rectifiers.[11]
Initially power was supplied through a unique system in which a pickup shoe rode in a channel above and to one side of the track. This proved vulnerable to contamination from coal smoke, and after a short time it was replaced by a conventionalthird rail system. When the Howard Street track was made into agantlet to allow higher clearances, the pickup contacts on one side were mounted on swinging arms to accommodate the varying distance to the third rail. The electrification was finally discontinued in 1952 whendieselization made it unnecessary.[5]
Throughout much of its history until the end of passenger trains in 1958, the line had relatively low passenger traffic, averaging six daily New York–Washington trains each way. Freight traffic was also limited by the scarcity of online industry east of Baltimore and B&O's lack of a connection across thePotomac River at Washington, D.C., to the southern railroads. The massive Pennsylvania main line carried most traffic to the northeast.
By the 1970s, both railroads were failing financially. The PRR had been merged intoPenn Central in 1968, and two years later the new company declared bankruptcy.[12] The B&O became part of theChessie System in 1973, which in turn was merged into CSX in 1980.[13]
In 1976, the PRR line became part of the newAmtrak system. The line was subsequently called theNortheast Corridor (NEC), and its role as a freight line became relatively minor. Freight traffic was further reduced on the NEC after the 1987accident at Chase, Maryland, involving aConrail locomotive. The Belt Line (now operated by CSX) became a key link in what became the principal rail freight line from Baltimore to Philadelphia and beyond. This segment of the CSX network is considered a chokepoint for freight train service from the Port of Baltimore to East Coast and Midwest markets.[14]SeeBaltimore Terminal Subdivision.
On July 18, 2001, a 60-car CSXT freight derailed in the Howard Street Tunnel, sparking a fire that burned for six days and blocked traffic for much longer. TheHoward Street Tunnel fire called attention to the Belt Line, both as a danger to the surrounding structures and as a vulnerable chokepoint in rail traffic. CSXT has made various improvements to prevent accidents from closing the tunnel again, but is limited by the shallow depth of the bore (only three feet or 0.91 meters below the surface at the south end) and the instability of the surrounding soil.
On April 30, 2014, a block-long portion of a retaining wall in a below-grade stretch of the Belt Line in southernCharles Village collapsed after a heavy rainstorm, sending part of East 26th Street and a number of cars onto the tracks. No one was injured but the tracks were blocked by debris, shutting down railroad operations as well as the city block directly above them.[15]On May 2, 2014, freight trains once again began running through the tunnels along this stretch of the Baltimore Belt Line. East 26th Street was reopened to vehicular traffic a year later.
The tunnel's roof was 1.5 ft (0.46 m) too short to accommodatedouble-stacked intermodal containers. The cost to excavate the floor of the tunnel was estimated to range from $1 billion to 3 billion.
In April 2016, a $425 million plan was advanced to create the clearance by trimming and notching the tunnel's arched ceiling, lowering its floor, and using steel crossties, which have a lower profile than wood crossties. The Maryland Department of Transportation subsequently applied for a $155 million FY2016 FASTLANE grant to help fund a project based on this lower-cost plan, but the grant was not received. In December 2016, MDOT reapplied for a FASTLANE grant of the same amount in the FY2017 round of funding. In addition to the federal funds expected from the grant, the state of Maryland would contribute $145 million, and CSX $125 million In expectation of the grant funding, CSX is investing $25 million in the tunnel – $21 million to improve its water discharge system, and $4 million for engineering and design of the clearance improvements. The work would also increase the clearance at nine bridges north of the tunnel. The whole project would last 4 to 5 years because work would be scheduled around active rail traffic, create about 500 construction jobs, and would result in 178,000 containers per year being moved by rail from the Port of Baltimore instead of by truck.[16] Maryland GovernorLarry Hogan said that the state would explore other funding solutions if the FY2017 FASTLANE grant was not received.[17][18][19][20][21] On July 22, 2019, U.S. Transportation SecretaryElaine Chao announced the award of $125 million in federal infrastructure funding for the project.[22] In early 2025, the tunnel was closed to freight traffic for 7 months. During the renovations, the track was lowered 3 feet to create the clearance needed for double-stacked intermodal containers. The tunnel reopened on September 26, 2025.
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