Concept

Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad

Summary
The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad , familiarly known as the "Ma and Pa", was an American short-line railroad between York and Hanover, Pennsylvania, formerly operating passenger and freight trains on its original line between York and Baltimore, Maryland, from 1901 until the 1950s. The Ma and Pa was popular with railfans in the 1930s and 1940s for its antique equipment and curving, picturesque right-of-way through the hills of rural Maryland and Pennsylvania. Reflecting its origin as the unintended product of the merger of two 19th-century narrow gauge railways, the meandering Ma and Pa line took to connect Baltimore and York, although the two cities are only apart in a straight line. Passenger service was discontinued on August 31, 1954, and the section from Baltimore to Whiteford, Maryland (just south of the Mason-Dixon line demarcating the Pennsylvania-Maryland border) was abandoned in June 1958. Most of the remaining original railroad line was abandoned by 1984. The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad acquired a former Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) branch line between York and Hanover in 1976, now operated by a successor corporation, York Railway. The Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad was formed from two earlier 19th-century 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge railways: the Baltimore & Delta Railway, later the Baltimore and Lehigh Railway, and the York and Peach Bottom Railway, later the York Southern Railroad. Construction of the Baltimore & Delta Railway started in 1881, and passenger trains between Baltimore and Towson, Maryland, began on April 17, 1882. Later that year the company was merged into the Maryland Central Railroad. The line was extended northward to Bel Air, Maryland on June 21, 1883, and the following January, the line was completed to Delta, Pennsylvania. In Pennsylvania, the Peach Bottom Railway was incorporated in 1871. The railway's Middle Division laid narrow gauge track between York and Red Lion by August 1874 and completed its line southward to Delta in 1876.
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