RAILROAD SIGNALS of the U.S.

RAILFAN GUIDE to BALTIMORE

Welcome to Baltimore

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Meaningless introduction......

I know a lot of ya'll won't need, or even care, for all of the information in this guide. Oh well...... I know a lot of you will want to criticize it, too. Oh well...... After you have finished critcizing, please write your own so we can all see how well you have done, you won't find it such an easy task!

I put this together because there is a definate lack of GOOD travel information relating specifically to the railfan. And, if it does exist, where do you go to find it? There are a few places you can go on the internet, but there's no consistancy, and many go as quickly as they come (just like mine may!). There's word-of-mouth, but it's slower than snail-mail, and often comes after you need it. So, what to do?

When you go somewhere unfamiliar, how do you get around? How do you find things? It's tough, isn't it? I know, I've been there many times before. Like a trip I made many years ago with some friends to the MA and CT area. We didn't have a clue where anything was (well - maybe a few things - but you get my point). We coulda saved a lot of time with a guide like this, especially when we were tired from trainchasing all day and were looking for a hotel and some grub.

So, what kind of info is important to the railfan? First of all - where the train stuff is, right? How about things like hotels - restaurants - gas stations - where to get film or auto parts? What do you think? Even if you have flown to a distant land and already have a hotel lined up, you still need to know where the rest of the stuff is - correctomundo? So I figured.....well, we all figured on that trip, that one of us should put together a guide. Bingo, I got elected.

Resources - Don't leave home without them!.....

As good as this guide is, it nowhere near perfect, and it doesn't have everything in it, so here's a few things I recommend you take along and don't generally leave home without.....

-- Maps..... See the next section.

-- An Amtrak timetable, unless you're railfanning a line not serviced by them (I still bring em along anyway).

-- The American Shortline Railway Guide by Edward A. Lewis (Kalmbach).

-- If you carry along a scanner, there is a good website for railroad radio frequencies maintained by Jon Roma.  In these post 9/11 days, there is much pro and con discussion concerning the relative merits of being perceived as a terrorist threat if you have a scanner.  Add to that, that some states have laws preventing you from having portable scanners, such as Michigan and New Jersey.  If you are a ham, one option available to you is to buy a two-meter HT that also covers the Hi-VHF band.  I was lucky with two cops at the Plymouth Diamond in suburban Detroit.... they just threw my scanner into the trunk and let me off with a warning.

-- If you belong to AAA, they have pretty good guide books available with hotel info and other sights, altho the hotel information is limited to the ones they consider halfway worthwhile - rare is a listing for Motel 6.

-- Check Chamber of Commerce websites for hotel and motel info.

-- If you are going to be in Commuter Railroad or transit company territory, be sure to check their websites for information, maps, and schedules.

-- Steam Productions has a series of regional map books.... While they are good railroad map books, as they contain a lot of railroad route and yard info, they don't have any road or highway info on the maps.  This makes them very difficult, if not impossible, to get around with them alone.  Careful coordination with a regular map is necessary.

A couple of other resources I have used, especially with my recent trip to Houston:

-- J. Stephen Sandifer has/had an excellent website for railfanning around the Houston TX area.

-- John Szwajkart has a good Train Watchers Guides for the Chicago, Kansas City, and St Louis areas, altho I don't know if they are still available (I have the Chicago one, I've only heard the other two exist).

Maps - Don't leave home without them either.....

-- If you do a lot of traveling, I definitely recommend joining the AAA.  They are an excellent source of "free" maps once you join (10 maps and you got your money back).  Almost every map I've obtained from them (so far) has had the railroads on ‘em, and some of them even have yard names (Portland OR and Indianapolis IN for instance).  With all the traveling I do, I find the $35 a year well worth the investment, if for nothing more than their maps.  A large number of the local offices usually have the more obscure local maps available at no cost -- some are AAA maps, some are locally printed maps.....  Even with the AAA, you still have to be careful, because they do distribute a few bummers as maps for the metro Boston, New York City and Philadelphia areas - they don't contain enough detail and they don't have any railroads on them.  They even offer a five county combo map of Baltimore and the immediate surrounding counties, saving you quite a few bucks.

-- In the Baltimore area, I recommend the series of county map books put out by ADC (Alexandria Drafting Co). They can be found everywhere: 7-11s, Giant food stores, drug stores, etc.  While I DO endorse their series of county map books, I DO NOT endorse their series of state map books - they lack railroad info.

-- Thomas Bros has recently entered the Baltimore market.  Their map books are good, and even offer some topo info, heck, they even show the Tehachipi loop as a loop.  Anyone from the LA area should already be familiar with them. However, I prefer the ADC books because they contain bigger pages, which means less page flipping and thinner books.

-- APB (Alfred B Patten) puts out a decent series of maps for the eastern PA area.

-- Geographica does the same for NJ and lower NY.

-- The Chicago Tribune puts out a nice map of the Chicago area,.  Altho it doesn't have the smaller streets on it, I haven't really found that to be a problem, so far.

-- A newcomer I noticed at Sam's Club the other day......is a series of (topo) state map books by Coleman, they have railroads in ‘em.

-- Be careful with other maps.  One I purchased recently for a city in Iowa, had the Wabash and all of the other 60's era railroad names on it.  While this is nice for historical purposes, the other data on the map may not be current, either.   Some maps don't have railroads on them at all, so check em out before you buy em.

-- And No, I wasn't paid to push any of these resources. I just found them to be the best where I have been.

In Defense Of Myself.....

It's my website, it's that simple, so I won't bore you with the details, you already know what I'm going to say.

Disclaimer.....

I guess I need to put this in here so someone can't sue me over the fact that a McDonalds is no longer there, or the Holiday Inn on one of my maps is now a Comfort Inn or Super 8.  I have made every effort to make sure that the information contained in this guide is correct.  If you find something is in error, please send me a note, but please make it a nice one, I'll throw the nasty ones away.  Please don't waste the bandwidth asking me why didn't I include something in the guide.  But if you have something to contribute, by all means, please send it in, don't keep it to yourself.

My email is: toddguide@comcast.net

So OK, What about the other things to see around Baltimore.....

The Baltimore-Washington area has tons of other stuff begging for your attention, if you have the time.  Some of you might get your panties in an uproar because I'm covering non-railroad related material (as someone in the bio section doesn't like my bus section :-).  But there are other things to do and see, especially if you are travelling with your family.

There is Harborplace, with lotsa stuff to see, eat or whatever.

Little Italy is a few blocks away.....  has over 15 restaurants...... free parking is tough to find tho!

Fells Point is not far away either, and has some 60-70 pubs and restaurants, along with two live community theaters.

Greektown is a little further out on the eastside in Highlandtown, and offers some good eatin.

If you like malls, needles to say, we got plenty of them too - most are in the burbs tho (Towson, Whitemarsh, Owings Mills, Eastpoint, Security, Glen Burnie, and BWI).

Washington DC is less than an hour away from Baltimore. There is so much stuff down there to see that it would take up an entire guide the size of this one to cover it all. Of course.... you have the White House, the Smithsonian, the Air and Space Museum, oodles of monuments like the Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln.  There's Georgetown with its many watering holes and eateries, there's Old Town Alexandria, and our very own Six Flags amusement park.  With all of these other things to do, you may never get to see another train if you come with your family.

The Baltimore area is home to.....

- The first railroad in the United States, the Baltimore and Ohio. *
- Fort McHenry, where our national anthem was written by Francis Scott Key,
---- (the Key bridge, now you know where it got its name). *
- Life-Like Models, you know, the Proto 2000 people - a little north of the streetcar museum on Falls Rd.
- Black and Decker, and DeWalt (in Towson).
- McCormick spices (Hunt Valley).
- Noxema and Cover Girl cosmetics (Proctor and Gamble) - in Cockeysville,
- Johns Hopkins Hospital / University and Applied Physics Laboratory,
---- (the hospital is consistently rated a leader in U.S. medicine) *
- The national HQ for the NAACP.
- Polk Audio (they're up near the Metro shops).
- The Orioles baseball team
- The Ravens football team
---- Along with our brand new twin stadiums. *
- The first welded rail in the United States was laid on the B&O along I70 near Mt. Airy.
- One of the more diverse transit systems in the U.S., with light rail, heavy rail, commuter rail, and busses. *
- The national HQ for MCI is up in Hunt Valley.
- Your Social Security headquarters is off Security Blvd in Woodlawn (exit 17).
- Babe Ruth was born in Baltimore. *
- Edgar Allen Poe was buried in Baltimore
---- they have nice Halloween night tours thru the cemetary, a real scream. *
- What used to be the Westinghouse Defense Center (now Northrop/Grumman).
---- they brought you the first radar system ever, used in Hawaii in 1941.
---- (the one nobody paid any attention to during the attack on Pearl Harbor)
---- and the first TV cameras used on the moon in 1969.
* denotes things you can visit.

Here are a few other places you can visit.....

- The Harborplace area - within a short walking distance you have.....
--- The Maryland Science Center.
--- The Aquarium.
--- The USS Constellation, sister ship to the USS Constitution in Boston.
--- The USS Torsk, a WWII submarine.
--- The Light St and Pratt St Harborplace pavilions (eating and shopping).
--- The Hard Rock Cafe.
--- The Planet Hollywood (ooooops, I think they closed up!....oh well).
--- The ESPN Zone, it was the first one in the U.S.
--- The World Trade Center, has a nice observation "deck" way up on the 23rd floor.
--- The Public Works Museum.
--- The Galleria (shopping).
--- Little Italy, on the other side of President St from Harborplace.
- A Civil War shot tower still stands across from the main PO at the Metro Shot Tower stop.
- Fells Point, many pubs and restaurants - go east on Pratt St and take a right at Broadway, can't miss it.
- Greektown, in Highlandtown, good eating - go east on Eastern Ave from Fells Point, and under the rr overpasses.
- The Walters Art Gallery, is up Charles St about 11 blocks from Harborplace.
- The Washington monument is next to the Walters Art Gallery, and it pre-dates the one in DC.
- The Morris Mechanic and Center Stage theaters provide live theater and Broadway shows.
- The Lyric Opera House (near Mt. Royal station) is home to the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra and other live music.
- The Hampton Mansion in Towson, cool house, it's part of the National Park system.
- The home of NBCs Homocide, was down in Fells Point.

Last updated:   06/21/2007