Eastern Railroad Discussion > Where to rail fan in the Baltimore?

My friend will be heading to the Baltimore area in the next several weeks.  Where are the hot spots to rail fan that are safe and legal to watch trains?

Thanks,
Russ

Many places, will he have a car or rely on public transportation?   Quick and easy would be St Denis on CSX, get all the traffic to/from the west and south, safe place with adequeate parking a few MARC trains at rush hour.  Also Halethorpe MARC station for Amtrak and MARC trains all day.

wasn't there just a thread on this, in the past few days?

I went looking for it, and didn't find it.

We will have a car. 

Russ

+1 for MARC's St. Denis station, it's a nice place to hang out and watch CSX freights.  I hear rumors MARC runs a train there every once in a while too.  Halethorpe is a good place for the NEC.

In that same vicinity, it's worth paying to get into the Pataspco River State Park to see the Thomas Viaduct (Pic 1).  It's just inside the entry gate off of South Street.

Closer to the waterfront, the Canton Railroad keeps their locomotive stash around Holabird Ave (Pic 2).  It's in an industrial area that doesn't seem sketchy.  I don't know their operating habits or even where they actually run, unfortunately.

If you have time, Perryville is about an hour from Penn Station; nice NEC bridge over the Susquehanna River (Pic 3).  CSX also crosses the river just upstream (and on the other side of the highway) from here, but I haven't had a chance to scope that bridge out.  If someone else knows whether it's accessible I'd like to hear about it...

CSX1346 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> We will have a car. 
>
> Russ

---

---

---

Did they clear the viaduct shrubbery? I was there a few years ago and feel like there wasn't a shot like that avialable back then.
 

My photo of Thomas Viaduct is from October, north bank of the river, east side of the viaduct.  It looked like there had been some equipment working on the south side of the road  that left several nice easy walking paths through the brush down to the river.  Most of the north end of the bridge was visible from the road without any shrubbery, but there is an inconveniently placed power line tower up there.

The Google street view (dated 2009) looks about the same as it did for me, not counting the equipment tracks through the shrubbery.

I had previously tried to view the south end of the viaduct, outside of the state park, and found it pretty much completely hidden by trees.

erielackawanna Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Did they clear the viaduct shrubbery? I was there
> a few years ago and feel like there wasn't a shot
> like that avialable back then.
>