The Railroad... Past and Present

—Brunswick —

The railroad arrived in 1834, but its major impact on the town of Berlin (as it was then known) occurred fifty years later when the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad moved its major rail yard operation here from Martinsburg, WV. In 1890, the United States Postal Service encouraged a name change to Brunswick, in an effort to remedy shipping and passenger confusion with another Berlin located on Maryland's eastern shore.
Brunswick soon became the location of a gravity freight yard, seven miles in length, built to allow the sorting of railroad cars by letting them roll down a slight slope to switches which diverted them to the desired track. Repair shops and a roundhouse made this a major railroad center from 1890 well into the 20th century. Today Brunswick is a leading commuter station on the MARC (Maryland Area Regional Commuter) line into Washington, DC.
For over 30 years, the Brunswick Railroad Museum has preserved the city's history. The second floor exhibits tell the history of Brunswick and its residents. A massive HO scale model railroad fills the third floor and accurately depicts the B&O Railroad's Metropolitan Subdivision from the Brunswick rail yard to Washington, DC's Union Station, with many of the towns and cities along the line as they looked during the late 1950s and early 1960s.
[Photo captions, from top
to bottom, read]
Building of the Brunswick rail yard circa 1890's
Baltimore & Ohio Train circa Late 1940's- Early 1950's
Brunswick rail yard circa 1925
Present day MARC commuter train beside Brunswick's historic train station
Present day CSC freight train
Model train display at the Brunswick Railroad Museum
[Side B]
Brunswick Area Recreation and Map
"... a refuge, a retreat, a long stretch of quiet and peace..."
-Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas referring to the C&O Canal towpath in a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, January 19, 1954
[Balance of marker is recreational information and is not transcribed]

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Show me all markers in:  Brunswick, MD  |  Frederick County  |  21716  |  Maryland  |  United States of America

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