Trail Trainspotting

After finishing our science project investigation of Bloede Dam, the girls wanted to go to the tunnel next. The tunnel they were referring to is actually a culvert under the rail tracks just a little further down the trail.

As we got close I could hear the distant rumble of a train. This would be the third train we had seen in less than an hour. A few yards away from me stood a man holding what was presumably his son. They had stopped to listen to the approaching behemoth as well.

Before long the massive blue CSX engines appeared through the trees up on top of an embankment above the trail and the river. It rumbled by slowly pulling a line of tankers, coal cars and freight cars and overpowering the sound of the swollen Patapsco River. Before long the engineer blew his diesel horn as he approached the Ilchester Tunnel below Buzzard Rock. The trains typically move slowly through this winding stretch of track. These rails, known as the old main line subdivision has been in operation since 1830. The keystone on the culvert “tunnel” is stamped with the year 1869.

There sure is a lot stuff going on in this little slice of the Patapsco Valley State Park.