Great Seneca Highway says, "CSX who?"

Silos of Liberty Mill tower over Germantown Station which would be destroyed before the revitalization MARC would bring during the next decade.

Link to older pic: 1985

In this more recent view, the reconstructed station looks more model than real. MARC passenger waiting shacks have been nicely designed to match the station's 1891 architecture.

Link: MJB Models

Before Liberty Mill could ship out flour via the B&O, it had to grind it, and before that the incoming grain had to be weighed. About 40 years have elapsed since last use, but this weigh station remnant survives.

Ever wondered how track ties that mark culvert locations get their pearly whites? Well, here's the paint crew at work (note the white pail) as an eastbound mixed freight rolls by.

Initially I was puzzled: why is there a culvert under what appears to be a high spot? The answer is the high spot represents fill added by the B&O when in 1927 it realigned the Met slightly south of the original.

This is the culvert with the freshly painted tie. The unique tilework is erosion control.

These dark CPLs are merely resting. The G sign indicates "Grade" and modifies the meaning of the signal lights such that, for example, a train can proceed slowly through a red signal so as to avoid stopping on a hill which might be steep enough to prevent a stopped train from moving again without assistance.

The meaning of the signals and signs varies whether the signal has a number plate on it (!). How does one know the number plate has not simply fallen off?

The realignment mentioned above was the B&O's choice to replace this bridge across Little Seneca Creek. The single-track original was a 600-foot look timber monster that survived only about 25 years before this steel structure replaced it in 1896. It would endure only slightly longer.

The bridge above, one of the B&O's earlier such applications of steel, proved a maintenance headache, so in 1927 the railroad realigned a short distance downstream onto this substantial concrete bridge that continues in use now. During non-leaf season remnants of the steel bridge's stone abutments can be glimpsed through this arch.

yet another improvised Met milepost

Old paint CSX 623 along with CSX 8368 and LMS 7925 are about to cruise across the Clarksburg Road bridge at Boyds, Maryland.

Link: more CSX 7925

The guardrail of the Clarksburg Road bridge appears to be 1927 vintage original. Also of note is the stairway, an accoutrement unlikely found on a more recent structure. At the top of the stairway had been the B&O's Boyds Station.

The concrete foundation's shape, size, and tracks proximity, plus brick platform join together to say they had been part of Boyds Station after the realignment. The frame station survived into the 1970s. Unseen on the left, a small waiting shack now serves passengers of MARC trains.

The original alignment ran along the far side now occupied by junked automobiles, however at that time the B&O's brick station at Boyds sat a short distance west.

Here is that original brick station. Note the signal tower with ladder. The town is named for a B&O contractor who began to farm here after helping to build the Met.

A logical location for this station is at what had been a grade crossing of Barnesville Road / White Grounds Road, but I have not found definitive confirmation.

For a few miles west of Boyds the original and current alignments run in close proximity as evidenced by several bridges and culverts, the largest of which is numbered 31A. Here the original stone portion has been incorporated into the current bridge.

CSX 6151 and CSX 2673 lead coal empties westbound. The distant red lights belong to a CPL that guards crossovers.

The original alignment's grade crossing at Bucklodge Road survives as a gap in the forest. It is not clear to me what year that right-of-way was disused here, but 1906 (the date stone on Waring Viaduct back at mp 24.7) is a candidate.

Since double tracking of the Met was not completed until 1928, the single track passing through a rock cut ahead dates this Buck Lodge photo earlier. However, the similarity with a modern view (below) suggests this photo is not of the original alignment above, but rather the later alignment below. If correct that means the B&O realigned to here years before upgrading to double track, possibly in 1906.

The rusty siding might be the same rails as in the circa 1920 photo above. Someday I'll have to visit to check the date stamps. The B&O's Bucklodge Station stood on the left until about 1960.

A culvert of surprisingly crude construction can be found along the disused, parallel original alignment.

This locomotive unit generates one horsepower, sufficient to carry a rider under the brick and stone dual-arch Bucklodge Branch bridge.

As you may have noticed, Germantown marked the last spot of significant suburban DC development, and that means fewer interesting railroad elements to highlight per tour mile, and more stretches of nothing but gently curving rails. We're reduced to noting things like this concrete post. Concrete posts of this design are common, but ones with boxes still attached are not.