The tour follows the B&O, now CSX, route from West Baltimore, to Curtis Bay Junction, then east to Curtis Bay. By the time of this aerial photo most of the key rails and roads were already in place.

Downtown Baltimore city is a mile or two past the upper-right corner.

CSX exported 14 million tons of coal via Curtis Bay during 2014. Hauling that much coal down from the hills of Appalachia requires about 600 coal cars in and out of both the mines and the port each and every work day.

Curtis Bay is not the only port, nor the only place, that demands coal: the coal cars seen here are destined not for Curtis Bay but rather a location farther north. To get to Curtis Bay, this train would instead have ridden the track 2nd from left. The leftmost tracks are part of the Old Main Line, the B&O's original route west from Baltimore, and though they appear to be rising with distance, actually the closer tracks are descending toward the stream named Gwynn's Falls.

Since the time of this photo, CSX has replaced the CPL signals here with the in-line color-light signal variety.

Unlike the coal train above, this colorful trio is on the correct track to head for Curtis Bay. Into the 1960s, Gable Avenue made a full grade crossing here, but now is limited to accessing Mt. Winans Yard which is served by the middle 4 tracks in this photo.

In this view from the grade crossing, the leftmost track leads to Mt. Clare Yard and the right can access both the Curtis Bay Branch as well as the B&O Museum.

An uncommon unit is parked at right in the yard... let's have a closer look.

It's a Loram RAILVAC maintenance of way unit that Loram describes as follows,

"RAILVAC™ is a unique excavation machine that conveys material through vacuum and airflow. The machine is rail mounted and designed to travel at track speeds while towing up to four fully loaded ballast cars. The combination of a powerful digging arm with twin engines and vacuum pumps makes it capable of excavating compacted ballast, clay, mud, water, sand, and soil. The digging arm can work at distances up to 15 feet from track centerline.

"Material is extracted through the suction hose and deposited in the main hopper. The finer dust then runs through a filtration system, removing the dust from the air stream. The filter elements are cleaned automatically by the air counterflow during the routine unloading of the system. A rear swing conveyor, or optional side dumping doors unload material."

Most CPL signals had six lamps, but this one was equipped with eight. The extra two lamps were used to display a Restricting aspect sometimes needed when approaching rail yards. Indeed, Mt. Clare Yard lies just beyond the bend.

Prior to reaching Mt. Clare Yard, trains encounter this wye of track marking Curtis Bay Junction. Seen beyond is Zepp's bridge over Mt. Winans Yard.

Link: more Curtis Bay Junction photos

Beyond Zepp's bridge, over a mile distant, you can glimpse I-95 and even further away some of Baltimore's taller buildings.

Change for: Camden Cutoff at this site

This is the view back to the bridge from the Hollins Ferry Road grade crossing. A derailment on December 9, 1978 that heavily damaged the structure may explain dissimilarities among the bridge segments.

Links: 1978, 1978, 1978

This map extends coverage as we proceed east (right) from Zepps.

Link: Todd's Railfan Guide around Zepp's Bridge

Now the bridge is at the photographer's back. The Zepp's name originates from a 19th century landowner but only the railroad continues to use it to refer to this area.

The CPL signal has been changed to in-line signals.

The Hollins Ferry Road grade crossing, the oldest on the branch, yields a surprise. Is that a railroad signal over there?

It is a railroad signal, and the only one if its kind in the region. This unique signal references rule CI (or is it C1?) that "copies" the stop aspect of the signal at Zepps. Trains greater than certain length are to stop here rather than at the actual signal so as to avoid blocking Hollins Ferry Road for an extended time period.

During past years a siding peeled from the left to serve the white building across the road.

B&O repurposed a pair of standard grade crossing flashers made by Modern Industries by swapping in white lenses. I assume the pointed ends at the highest spots direct and divert lightning strikes.

Several other quirky signals, though none quite like this, are found on the way to Curtis Bay and will be illustrated later.

Before MD 2, 3 or 295, or I-97 existed, Annapolis Road was the main thoroughfare between Baltimore and Maryland's capital of Annapolis, thus I would guess it has been grade separated since Day 1 of the Curtis Bay Branch. If correct, that makes at least the masonry portion of bridge 1D the oldest on the line.

Maryland 295, the B-W Parkway, arrived on the scene during the 1950s. This coal train arrived later.

Located behind the trees on the right had been Westport Stadium, home of the Baltimore Elite Giants, a Negro League Baseball team that played into the 1950s. Later the site served as a NASCAR race track. The aerial photo above from 1964 shows the remains of a pitcher's mound encircled by a dirt race track.

Link: Westport Stadium

Though this light rail train has just crossed under the Curtis Bay Branch, it is a relative newcomer. The bridge dates to 1914 when B&O declined to allow the Maryland Electric Railways Company to continue to operate the latter's trains upon B&O track from here into the city. The electric trains were rerouted onto their own right-of-way parallel to what was then B&O's South Baltimore Branch.

The electric train companies struggled to compete, and went through several reorganizations and names such as Annapolis and Baltimore Short Line, Annapolis Short Line (ASL), Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Electric Railway (WB&A), and Baltimore and Annapolis (B&A).

B&A's passenger service ended in 1950, and part of the right of way morphed into a semi-public road known as Urban Lane. For decades it was possible for autos to drive under the bridge here, but now the unpaved Urban Lane ends near the photographer's location. The Baltimore Light Rail system revived B&A's old route around 1990 to provide passenger train service between BWI Airport and Baltimore, plus many local stops.

Change for: ASL/B&A tour at this site

Link: Auto-Railer 1935

Prior to the bridge and their own alignment into the city, ASL had glommed onto B&O tracks here at Cliffords and shared B&O's route into Baltimore. Like Zepps, Cliffords is a location name only the railroad continues to use.

The foreground tracks are those of CSX's South Baltimore Industrial Track (B&O South Baltimore Branch), while the next two over are the Curtis Bay Branch tracks we've been following.

Change for: South Baltimore Branch tour at this site

Link: 2015

The light rail catenary wires lengthen and shorten with changes in temperature. In order to keep them taut, at various intervals weights tug on the wires, and serve as a thermometer of sorts. Since the weights are high off the ground you know the temperature at photo time was... think about it... the answer is next... relatively low.

In the tangle of switches near the signals, CSX and light rail maintain a rail connection, their only one in the region. At the signal the South Baltimore Industrial Track (foreground) splits/joins, and accordingly its milepost 0 stands nearby.

A detailed 1915 atlas puts B&O's Clifford Station immediately on the far side of the utility box at left. The atlas also shows passegner platforms on the right for what had been ASL.

From here, light rail trains turn south (right) to BWI Airport while CSX dual tracks bend left on their route to Curtis Bay...

Change for: Light Rail tour at this site

The Curtis Bay Branch mileposts decline as the route proceeds generally east, the direction of this tour. The zero milepost is at the right edge of this map.

Just around the bend from the end of Curtis Bay tour page 1, the last of a mile-long train of coal empties rumbles westward past the camera. On a typical day, a railfan at this spot can count over 1000 coal cars rolling by. Much of the swampy land here has been set aside as parks; in the distance, nearer than the signals, note the handrail of a bridge where the Patapsco River disgorges into the Chesapeake Bay.

The biggest obstacle to accessing Curtis Bay was B&O's old nemesis, the Patapsco River; this section was known as Ferry Branch when the railroad arrived in 1882. This is B&O's easternmost crossing of the river, and it was the longest, too, before I-895 landfilled the east bank. More distant than the railroad bridge is the river crossing of Potee Street, which will soon intersect the railroad.

Via its Big Green Signs, I-895 becomes visible at Potee Street. CSX had not yet replaced these B&O CPL signals at photo time. This example was a rarity: it can display only Stop or Restrict.

Link: source photo

This is not the first B&O bridge at this location: originally a shorter one had spanned a creek, but during the 1920s that creekbed was transformed into Potee Street. Those light rectangular patches hide B&O heralds on this 1953 version of the bridge.

Hanover Street pre-dates the railroad, and look, we've caught the end of yet another train of coal empties.

The Baltimore and Curtis Bay Railway began streetcar service here on May 28, 1892. The streetcars ran across Long Bridge to Light Street at what is now Ferry Bar Park in Baltimore. The southeast terminal was located at Patapsco and Pennington Avenues.

I-895 and the railroad are at the same elevation for a short distance, permitting a view of three-tracks-worth of signals

BX (Brooklyn) Tower oversaw the entrance and exit of Curtis Bay Yard. It closed July 16, 1985 after which the building deteriorated for 25+ years. Some references call this BA Tower.

Link: 1988

Prior to the 1950s arrival of the Harbor Tunnel Thruway, Chesapeake Avenue had cut across the tracks here on a diagonal, just east of BX Tower. By 1948, then-new Frankfurst Avenue, which stayed on the north side of the tracks, became the main drag and the grade crossing was deemphasized.

A bleak, frigid winter day looks all the more bleak without BX Tower: CSX razed it during 2014. That raze and raise sound alike but mean the opposite is one of the wonders of the English language.

No, this is not the work of the Microsoft Windows Support Team, nor Emerald City haters.

Begin OS and End OS signs mark a stretch of track in which a train operator can punch in a code to electrically operate a PAS (power assisted switch) between the signs. As you may guess, in the past switches were operated manually and mechanically, sometimes remotely from a tower where to alter a particular switch an employee would yank on one lever from a long row. For CSX, OS means "On Switch".

This LED dwarf signal, emitting piercing green (and amber and red) photons, was the first installation of its type in the region. Similar ones would be installed at Jessup Yard several years later.