The Eastern Shore Railroad, Inc. was a Class III

short-line railroad A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that operates over a relatively short distance relative to larger, national railroad networks. The term is used primarily in the United States and Canada. In the former, railroads are ...

that ran trains on the former

New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad The New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad was a railroad that owned and operated a line that ran down the spine of the Delmarva Peninsula from Delmar, Maryland to Cape Charles, Virginia and then by car float, ferry to Norfolk, Virginia. It ...

line on the

Delmarva Peninsula The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a peninsula on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Eastern Shore of Virginia. The peninsula is l ...

between

Pocomoke City, Maryland Pocomoke City, dubbed "the friendliest town on the Eastern Shore", is a city in Worcester County, Maryland, Worcester County, Maryland, United States. Although renamed in a burst of civic enthusiasm in 1878, the city is regularly referred to by i ...

, and

Norfolk, Virginia Norfolk ( ) is an independent city (United States), independent city in the U.S. state of Virginia. It had a population of 238,005 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, making it the List of cities in Virginia, third-most populous city ...

, interchanging with the

Norfolk Southern Railway The Norfolk Southern Railway is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States. Headquartered in Atlanta, the company was formed in 1982 with the merger of the Norfolk and Western Railway and Southern Railway. The comp ...

at both ends. It took over from the Virginia and Maryland Railroad (VMR) in October 1981 when the Accomack-Northampton Transportation District Commission (A-NTDC) purchased the line from the VMR. It stopped operations in 2006 and was then replaced by the

Bay Coast Railroad The Bay Coast Railroad was a Class III short-line railroad that ran trains on the former New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Railroad line on the Delmarva Peninsula between Pocomoke City, Maryland, and Norfolk, Virginia, interchanging with the N ...

History

The rail line from Pocomoke City to

Cape Charles, Virginia Cape Charles is a town / municipal corporation in Northampton County, Virginia, United States. The population was 1,178 as of the 2020 census us, 2020 Census. History Cape Charles, located close to the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay, on Eastern Sh ...

was built by the New York, Philadelphia and Norfolk Company (NYP&N) in 1884. At Cape Charles it built a freight depot, terminal and harbor at the headland point at. By 1885 it had built a car float system, using barges to cross the Chesapeake Bay to Norfolk. The

Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad The Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad (PB&W) was a railroad that operated in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Washington, District of Columbia, the District of Columbia from 1902 until 1976. A key component of the Pennsylvania R ...

(PB&WR) which was owned by the

Pennsylvania Railroad The Pennsylvania Railroad ( reporting mark PRR), legal name as the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, also known as the "Pennsy," was an American Class I railroad that was established in 1846 and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. At its ...

(PRR), purchased the NYP&N in 1908 and in 1922 if became the "Norfolk Division" of the PRR. In 1929 the PRR built the little creek yard in the Little Creek area of Virginia Beach near the Norfolk/Virginia Beach line. It all became part of the Delmarva Division in 1930. In 1968 the PRR merged to become the

Penn Central The Penn Central Transportation Company, commonly abbreviated to Penn Central, was an American class I railroad that operated from 1968 to 1976. Penn Central combined three traditional corporate rivals, the Pennsylvania, New York Central and the ...

, which then declared bankruptcy 2 years later. The rail line then came under control of

Conrail Conrail , formally the Consolidated Rail Corporation, was the primary Class I railroad in the Northeastern United States between 1976 and 1999. The trade name Conrail is a portmanteau based on the company's legal name. It continues to do busine ...

in 1976 and at the same time Northampton and Accomack counties created the Accomack-Northampton Transportation District Commission (A-NTDC). A-NTDC arranged for the Virginia and Maryland Railroad, to replace Conrail's operations in 1977. That arrangement lasted until 1981, when the Canonie Atlantic Company purchased the track and created the Eastern Shore Railroad (ESHR) (unaffiliated with a 19th Century railroad of the same name that built the line from Pocomoke City north to Delmar) to provide service from the Maryland border to Little Creek. In 1986, the ESHR sought to abandon the railroad south of Pocomoke City. But the next year A-NTDC purchased Canonie Atlantic and kept it operating. In February 2006 Cassatt Management, LLC. took over the ESHR. As part of the deal they agreed not to use the Eastern Shore name and so they renamed it the

. The Bay Coast Railroad operated the line until May 18, 2018. In June 2018, the

Delmarva Central Railroad The Delmarva Central Railroad is an American short-line railroad owned by Carload Express that operates of track on the Delmarva Peninsula in the states of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia. The railroad operates lines from Porter, Delaware to Ha ...

took over the portion between Pocomoke City and

Hallwood, Virginia Hallwood is a town in Accomack County, Virginia, United States. As of the 2010 census, the town population was 206. History Wessells Root Cellar was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1970. Geography Hallwood is located at ...

where the remaining customers were located. Service on the Norfolk side was taken over by the

Buckingham Branch Railroad Buckingham Branch Railroad is a Class III short-line railroad operating over 275 miles (443 km) of historic and strategic trackage in Central Virginia. Sharing overhead traffic with CSX and Amtrak, the company's headquarters are in Dill ...

. Service on the Norfolk side was taken over by the

. Image:ESHR2014.jpg, LLPX 2014, a leased

EMD GP38 The EMD GP38 is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Motors Electro-Motive Division between January 1966 and December 1971. The locomotive's prime mover was an EMD 645 16- cylinder engine that generated . The company bui ...

, was used for switching the ferry terminal in

Little Creek, Virginia Little is a synonym for small size and may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Little'' (album), 1990 debut album of Vic Chesnutt * ''Little'' (film), 2019 American comedy film *The Littles, a series of children's novels by American author John P ...

. Image:ESHR8096.JPG, ESHR 8096, a GP10, named the "Cape Charles" was parked at the headquarters in Cape Charles, VA.

19th Century Eastern Shore Railroad

Another railroad under the name of the Eastern Shore Railroad was chartered in Maryland in 1835 and built a railroad line from

Delmar, Delaware Delmar is a town in Sussex County, Delaware, United States, on the Maryland border along the Transpeninsular Line. Its motto is "The Little Town Too Big for One State." The population was 1,597 at the 2010 census, an increase of 13.5% over t ...

Crisfield, Maryland Crisfield is a city in Somerset County, Maryland, United States, located on the Tangier Sound, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. The population was 2,515 at the 2020 census. It is included in the Salisbury, Maryland-Delaware Metropolitan Statis ...

in 1866 and a branch to

in 1871. It was foreclosed on in 1879 and acquired by the

in 1884. It is unrelated to the 20th century Eastern Shore Railroad.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Eastern Shore Railroad Defunct Maryland railroads Defunct Virginia railroads Spin-offs of Conrail

History

19th Century Eastern Shore Railroad

See also

References

Further reading

External links