RAILFAN GUIDES of the U.S.

Todd's Railfan Guide to
YORK PA
 

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York from where I live is a short hop of about 40 miles.  Being so close, you would have thought I would have been there all the time back in the early 70's.... not so... shame on me!  Back then, the Ma and PA still went down to Red Lion, and the Northern Central (Pennsy) still ran thru freights and passenger trains from Baltimore to Harrisburg - signaled every two miles with PL's. 

The Northern Central was the first railroad to reach York in 1837-38.  After that, came the Western Maryland, the York, Hanover and Gettysburg Rwy, and a couple of other smaller ones.

So what's left today for the railfan?

Norfolk Southern has a small yard on the north side of town, there is usually a couple of engines working the yard, or resting on the weekends.

What's left of the MA and Pa, renamed YorkRail to keep the railfans from coming around, is just east of the downtown area a couple of blocks off Market St.  Yorkrail interchanges with the Norfolk Southern on the north side of town at the Windsor Street Yard, and interchanges with the CSX in Hanover and Porters Sideling PA.  The railroad has about 40 miles of track.

As seen below, there are a couple of depots, Pennsy's old YORK tower, and numerous freight sheds still standing.  It looks like the WM freight shed is used as an apartment building.

South of York is Howard Tunnel, and while the Liberty Limited dinner train was still running, it (supposedly) made this tunnel the oldest tunnel still in operation in the U.S., having opened in 1838.

The last thing I am aware of that ran down to New Freedom on the "Northern Central" was a couple of engines used to haul equipment out after the the NC Rwy Dinner Train had it's stuff auctioned off in 2002 (if I recollect correctly).  The Stewartstown hasn't run anything for a few years, and it's been even longer since a load of lumber's been delivered into Stewartstown.

About signals - as far as I am aware, there are no signals left in the York area.  After hurricane Agnes came through in September 1972, the NC tracks were severely damaged, so much so, that they were never rebuilt "south of the border" (the MD/PA line).  After the hurricane, came local service only to Cockeysville (on the MD portion), and after being rebuilt by York County, service from York to New Freedom.  Being non-mainline tracks, the signals were no longer needed, and fell into a state of disrepair and were eventually removed, although much of the MD section signals were not removed until the Light Rail was built in 1990.  I have a couple of schematics and a relay laying around from around where I live in Ruxton/Riderwood - the relay was given to me when I worked for the Light Rail system back in 1995-98 cause the MOW foreman knew I was a railnut :-), sure wish I knew them when the line was being rebuilt so I could have gotten one of the PL signals.

Some of the above information came from the various York info sites I happened across as mentioned below.

The aerial shots come from www.bing.com/maps, in their "birds eye" view.... great resource!!!

The aerial shots were captured from Bing using Snagit from Techsmith, if you've never used it, give their 30 day trial a try!

If you have any additional info you would like to share with the rest of us, it would be greatly appreciated.... please email me.

Additional information may be found at these pages, some haven't been updated for a while (dates in parenthesis):
     The Ma and Pa homepage: http://www.maparailroadhist.org/index.htm
     A page by Greg Halpin (2002):  http://www.railroadsofyork.com/
     A page by Dave Cathell (2003):  http://davecathell.tripod.com/yr.html

The above map is available here as a PDF

   1      The old Ma and Pa Depot

It is on East Market St.

   2     The ex-Pennsy Depot

The remaining freight sheds are to the right.  The area across the tracks from the depot has now been turned into a stadium, and the area where the homes are in the picture, is now part of the stadiums park.

   3     The ex-Western Maryland Freight Building and Shed

The shed part is now gone.

   4     Pennsy's YORK tower

   5     The York Rail shops

As can be seen, they fence off everything "good" overnight and over the weekends.

   6     Norfolk Southern's Windsor St Yard

There's not usually anyone around on Sunday's to chase you off, but then, there's usually not anything running, either.

   7     Some of the Remaining Freight Sheds

The aerial shot for the Pennsy depot shows where they are.

   8     Bridges

The two bridges in town are seen in this picture.... both still in use.  The old main line to Baltimore curves off to the left, skimming by the odd shaped building with the curved side.  I'm sure there used to be signals all through here, but little evidence (very little) of them remains today.  The coal trestle on the right side of the picture was recently removed.

   9     The Harley Factory

It is on US 30, just east of I83.  It was built in 1973, sits on 230 acres, and is a 1.5 million square foot facility.  You can tour the plant and get a walk thru the actual factory floor, which starts in the Vaughn L. Beals tour facility.  They assemble touring and Softail models here. 
For more info, visit:  http://www.harley-davidson.com/wcm/Content/Pages/Factory_Tours/york.jsp?locale=en_US

  Between the tower and the NS yard, stands this isolated coal trestle.

Floobydust

Tractor Supply

Tractor Supply is located on US 30, west of I-83.

Harbor Freight

Harbor Freight is on Market Street east of I-83, exit 19.  While you're there, why not stop in at Perkins for some grub.... like Appleby's, but they have much better deserts!

NEW 2/8/2009
Last Modified 15-Jan-2012