What was Herbert Hoover's campaign slogan? "A chicken in every pot, and a train in every photo," something like that. This tour page gets close to that goal, plus, unlike President Hoover, can guarantee the value of your Pennsylvania RR stock will not collapse.

This Catenary Maintenance Vehicle was kept busy during 2019 installing new power cable hangers above track 1. Note the European-style bumpers.

Keeping a safe distance often means deep zoom (36x) photos that exhibit heat distortion even on cool March days. Let's call it an artistic effect.

The zoom reveals Bowie sits at a lower elevation than its surroundings. That's the museum's yellow caboose at distant right.

Link: 1977

Stone culvert hunting along the Penn Line often disappoints with modern piped culverts. This one's outlet is surprisingly distant from the trains, perhaps to facilitate future track additions. Some maps list this creek as the Newstep Branch.

Enduring almost till 1990, Springfield Road, the last grade crossing to be eliminated on the Northeast Corridor between Washington, DC and New York, provided a nice spot to watch AMTK 2002 zoom past. The fencing has changed since photo time. A 1904 map places Springfield Station within the southeast quadrant of the crossing.

This is the first known photo of Acela power car number 2002. Due to various problems, the Acela units replaced Amtrak's Metroliners more slowly than initially anticipated. Metroliner service endured until 2006.

The "Amtrak" name in red on the nose would disappear around 2006 only to briefly return in blue during 2010. This probably reflects nose panels being swapped during maintenance.

Per local resident Derald, as confirmed by topo maps, this stretch of the line was shifted southeast (right) during its 1930s electrification into the position seen here. The original route is buried in Derald's yard.

One photo, two moving trains.

One photo, three moving trains. Topping that along a high-speed line will be difficult, even after a fourth track is added.

Northbound AMTK 651 has just passed the line's highest spot in PG County.

In Glenn Dale, the line's only in-service industrial spur bewteen Odenton and Landover has been quiet for awhile.

On the way to Washington during the 1830s, B&O chose to build near the fall line ostensibly because that was the location favored by water-powered factories, ones that, along with their employees, could become rail customers. With more luck than foresight, during the 1870s the B&P/PRR built east of the fall line, a fortuitous choice that later enabled the railroad to serve the next generation of businesses, ones powered by electricity and located near US 1 / I-95. The fall line represents approximately how far inland the ocean reached the last time all of Earth's ice melted.

An 1878 Hopkins map places B&P's station in the northeast quadrant of the (former) grade crossing with Glenn Dale Road; in the main photo that's on the left.

As of 2019, St. George's Episcopal Church was still at the location shown on the 1878 map, but a proposed Maglev train route squeezes close to it. A 1904 map labels the area on the southeast side as an estate of Ex-Governor Oden Bowie.

Links, before grade separation: 1971, 1971

Folly Branch meanders and erodes enough in this vicinity to require a railroad retaining wall for AMTK 654 and relatives.

When one looks up prosaic in a railroad dictionary, pictured is a modern piped culvert. Perhaps this one will be interesting a century from now, or maybe not. In either case, it is hereby documented. The opposite (inlet) end is equally modern concrete and pipe.

To the southwest, and accessible only by railroad, a 1904 map labels an apparent housing development named Brashears Park. Perhaps the plan never came to fruition because no traces of it remain evident.

Amtrak equipped track 1 with new catenary holder arms during 2019 between what are known as the messenger and the auxiliary wires. These arms will dampen destructive oscillating waves that higher speed trains can induce in the wires. The bronze auxiliary and copper contact wires are grooved to facilitate attachment grasp.

This is preparation for higher speed operation. Amtrak made test runs of Acela equipment up to 165 mph during 2012.

Unfortunately, the arms add visual clutter to an already visually busy system. These holders were later added to the catenary above the other two tracks as well.

A misty afternoon helps us briefly imagine that's the headlight of a Pennsy K4 steamer slowing to stop at Seabrook, even when in reality it's another MARC train.

The large black rectangles at track level are defect detectors. Sometimes they are called smashboards, though the first smashboards were devices used at bridges to warn the operator of impending danger. Something being dragged by a train will strike a defect detctor's paddle, and trigger an alert to the railroad.

Links: CR 807, snowing, CSX 809

On a clear day you can see forever -- or AMTK 629 -- whichever comes first.

The distance of viewable straight trackage is at least 2 miles, on a clear day.

Links: NS 4270, CSX 5103

Seabrook is the only location in PG County that's enjoyed regular train service continuously since 1872. B&P's station building stood on the southeast side of the tracks (left).

The end of this train would be crossing Seabrook Road had Amtrak not closed the grade crossing circa 1990. For commuters, MARC built longer platforms and moved the nearby signals about 1000 feet northeast of the location seen in the various linked 1960s photos. A commuter train crashed into a stalled Amtrak train here on June 9, 1978.

Link: NTSB warns of faulty cab signals

Rain-spattered MARC 26, trying to find the sun, pushes away from Seabrook.

A freight siding had served businesses on the northwest (right) side of the tracks during prior decades.

Links looking SW: 1968, PC 4906 at grade crossing 1969, 1978

Before MARC and Amtrak were conjured, short-lived Penn Central hauled freight along the line such as via this 1940-built ex-PRR GG1 class locomotive. The photographer is looking northeast from Seabrook Road's former grade crossing.

PC retained PRR's single-color Position Light signals; Amtrak would colorize them later, plus add gauntlet signals as seen in the 1978 photo linked below. Gauntlet signals, the small circles next to the larger position light signals, alerted train operators to gauntlet track switch settings. The gauntlet track added after this photo would bring stopping trains closer to station platforms. Apparently, the extra gauntlet switches and signals were deemed unnecessary, because they are no longer extant, likely removed about 1990.

Links: source photo, 1978, PRR 4900, PC 4900, as AMTK 903

Every so often my opsimathy for the B&P is rewarded by an artifact such as this fine stone bridge over Bald Hill Branch. It is visible from Lanham Severn Road. Relatively fresh mortar suggests it has been rebuilt since its B&P origin, but that's not a complaint. The other, outlet side looks to be concrete, probably the result of lengthening to permit more tracks above, however that side is difficult to access for a photo. The white van was hauling track workers.

Unless I've missed another, only three B&P stone arch bridges survive along the Penn Line: this one, Severn Run, and Maiden's Choice.

After several miles of straight track, DC-bound AMTK 2003 demonstrates it remembers how to negotiate curves such as this one near Lanham.

As seen from the Lanham Station Road grade crossing (now closed), MARC 32 with "steam" breaking on its brow lifts passengers up a gradual incline. The railroad generally follows Beaver Dam Branch southwest from here to the Anacostia River. That's the I-95/I-495/Capital Beltway in the background.

The next photo illustrates the reverse view as would be seen from the white truck traversing the Beltway.

B&P's Lanham Station had stood at bottom right, on the other side of the tracks within the southeast quadrant of the Lanham Station Road grade crossing. MARC service continued there until 1982, long after the station structure had been removed.