After splitting off the main line, the spur to the site of B&O's 1927 Fair of the Iron Horse soon bifurcates. This tour page follows the spur generally south and west. All trackage at and beyond the curve ahead postdates the fair. The only bit of the fair's route that remains in railroad use is that from the main line to the curve ahead.

This Chessie System caboose from Western Maryland was in the lead as a train backed into the spur during 1981. It is numbered WMC1834 on its side.

Link: Chessie WM cabooses

This was the same spot during 2018.

Doing the pushing was B&O 5074, an EMD model NW2.

A flagman alerts drivers on Hollins Ferry Road.

Here's the same grade crossing during 2018. Signals were added to it around 1990.

CSX 2058 and CSX 6530 were caught sneaking along the spur on a summer afternoon.

Links: Sun mistakes this crossing for the much busier one at Mt. Winans, 2013

Traffic on the spur ain't what it used to be, so it has become a handy place to park MoW equipment.

Ironically, prior to hosting the Fair of the Iron Horse, during 1910 this land, plus the city, saw Baltimore's first airplane demonstration. This area was then known as Patapsco Farm.

Link: 1910 Air Show

Another aerial view foretells of the transport technology that would supplant rail as the top choice for long distance passenger travel. In a way, for travelers this celebration was instead the Farewell to the Iron Horse, particularly the steam-powered species.

In less than a year, B&O transformed 1000 acres of what was called Halethorpe Field into a site with room for tens of thousands of attendees. At the top of the map, along the main line note the passenger platforms for people arriving and departing via train. The only surviving evidence of the platforms is a wider-than-usual right of way in the vicinity of HX Tower.

Link: film from Fair (youtube)

HX Tower (distance) was ideally positioned to witness the Fair's parade of the history of transportation in America, with emphasis on steam locomotives, particularly those of B&O, of course. B&O had preserved at Martinsburg, WV only a few of its earliest locomotives so the gaps were filled with reproduction pieces made in Baltimore. Many of these reproductions remain on display today at the B&O Museum.

Note the stone arch bridge in the distance... approximately 1950 it was either replaced, or filled in and a new bridge built adjacent to allow a widened Halethorpe Farms Road under the tracks.

Links: 1927, 1927, 1927, 1927, more Sun photos

The pageantry ran from September 24 to October 8, 1927, then operated an extra week as an encore. After the Fair, the B&O kept the paraded equipment here, within the "Hall of Transportation" seen across the tracks, a structure that it boasted was fireproof. Fireproof perhaps, but on August 13, 1935 a storm leveled the building and destroyed about half the collection inside. B&O moved the surviving equipment to Bailey's Roundhouse in Baltimore, then during 1953 to the current Museum site.

Link: extensive, excellent Fair info at rgusrail.com

This was the scene shortly before B&O commenced construction of the fairgrounds. The aerial photos below step through time to show how the area has changed. HX Tower is the building casting a shadow above photo center in each photo of this sequence.

By 1938 the Fair was just a memory, but many of its structures survived, the notable exception being the Hall of Transportation that had blown down in a storm less than three years prior. The white rectangular area right of photo center shows where that had been.

The largest of the Fair's track ovals was 6000 feet in diameter. The intersection of the oval with Halethorpe Farms Road near photo center is where present-day Hollins Ferry Road meets Halethorpe Farms Road. An oval of railroad track is not something one finds many places.

By World War II, B&O encouraged industry to move into the area, thus repurposing and extending the life of the spur it had built. Note a new spur on the north side of the main line as well.

At photo bottom, new power lines were staking their place just prior to the arrival of the Baltimore Tunnel Thruway.

By 11 years later the Thruway had been completed, but Hollins Ferry Road did not yet cross the spur. Halethorpe Farms Road now extends south and under the Thruway in order to provide access to Patapsco State Park.

By 1994 many sidings have been removed.

At the time of this writing, this is the most recent aerial view available.

Though this 1989 drawing includes trackage that by that time had fallen into disuse, it illustrates roughly the maximum spread of B&O rail service post-Fair.

Track no longer exists (has been pulled up) as of 2019 east of Terminal Corp, nor at BTSC, Jefferies or Transit Storage. The rails end west of "Field 1 2 3" at a scrap metal facility.

Roadway Maps like this, and lots more cool B&O history materials, are available from The B&O Railroad Historical Society.

Despite the rust, as of 2019 trains do rumble through from time to time. This location is near what had been the east side of the Fair's track oval.

In some places only the crossties remain.

Link: 1985

Forging dates on these rails from Beth Steel include May 1937, and might reflect when the first post-Fair industry arrived here.

The track on right to businesses along Hollins Ferry Road had once extended over a half mile east, but is now disused.

The stretch east of Halethorpe Farms Road served as a yard as railcars arrived and others waited to be pulled out. It's seen hosting dozens of railcars in the 1964 Aerial above.

Halethorpe Farms Road crosses the tracks then ends at Patapsco State Park. Despite the closed entry gate, a sign dutifully displays the clearance under the Baltimore Harbor Thruway.

CSX extended the spur about 500 feet west during 2017 to a new ending within a scrap metal facility. Even if the irony has not gone unnoticed, trains continue to roll, even during the 2027 Bicentennial of the Iron Horse.