The B&O Railroad Museum is a museum and historic railway station exhibiting historic railroad equipment in Baltimore, Maryland. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad company originally opened the museum on July 4, 1953, with the name of the Baltimore & Ohio Transportation Museum.
The inaugural horse-drawn B&O train traveled the 13 miles (21 km) of the newly completed track from Mount Clare to Ellicott Mills (now Ellicott City, Maryland), on May 22, 1830, the first regular railroad passenger service in the U.S. The existing Mount Clare station brick structure was constructed in 1851. The adjacent roundhouse designed by Ephraim Francis Baldwin was built in 1884 to service the B&O's passenger cars.
Mount Clare is considered to be a birthplace of American railroading, as the site of the first regular railroad passenger service in the U.S., beginning on May 22, 1830. It was also to this site that the first telegraph message, "What hath God wrought?" was sent on May 24, 1844, from Washington, D.C., using Samuel Morse's electric telegraph.
The museum definitively documented 24 Freedom Seekers that used the B&O Railroad on their journeys on the Underground Railroad - 8 of which traveled through the museum's historic site of Mount Clare. In 2021, the museum's Mt Clare Station building was designated as a National Park Service Underground Railroad Network to Freedom site.
Partial List of Exhibits[]
- Steam Locomotives:
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad "York"
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad No. 8 "John Hancock"
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad No. 13 "Lafayette"
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad No. 25 "William Mason"
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad No. 57 "Memnonan"
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad No. 147 "Thatcher Perkins"
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad No. 305 "Ross Winans"
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad No. 600 "J.C. Davis"
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad No. 4500
- Baltimore & Ohio Railroad No. 5300
- Central of New Jersey No. 592
- Chesapeake & Ohio No. 377
- Chesapeake & Ohio No. 490
- Chesapeake & Ohio No. 2705
- Chesapeake & Ohio No. 1604
- Clinchfield No. 1
- Greenbrier Cheat & Elk No. 1
- Reading No. 2101 (Cosmetically Restored As American Freedom Train No. 1)
- St. Elizabeth Hospital No. 4
- Tom Thumb
- Diesel Locomotives:
- Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad GE 70 Ton Switcher No. 50
- Baltimore & Ohio E8A No. 92
- Baltimore & Ohio GP9 No. 6607
- Central Railroad of New Jersey SD-3 No. 1000
- Pere Marquette EMD SW1 No. 11
- Western Maryland Railway EMD BL2 No. 81
- Western Maryland Railway Alco RS-3 No. 195
Electric Locomotives:
- Former Locomotives:
- Chesapeake & Ohio No. 614 (Traded to Ross Rowland in Exchange for Reading No. 2101 in 1979)
- Chesapeake & Ohio No. 1309 (Acquired By the Western Maryland Scenic Railroad in 2014 and Later Restored to Operating Condition On December 31, 2020)
- Western Maryland No. 6 (Traded to the Cass Scenic Railroad in Exchange for Greenbrier Cheat & Elk No. 1 in 1980)
Images[]
Trivia[]
- The museum's rolling stock collection include both originals and replicas, some of which were built by the B&O for its centennial "Fair of the Iron Horse" in 1927.
- The museum also hosts an annual Day out with Thomas event every year, complete with the train's excursion including a non-powered Thomas the Tank Engine replica.
- They used to let Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal No. 15 come to the museum for the Day out with Thomas event but they currently liked to use the non-powered Thomas instead.
- In the early morning of February 17, 2003, heavy snow from the Presidents' Day Storm collapsed half of the roof of the museum's roundhouse.[1][2]
- The B&O Railroad Museum possesses the oldest and most comprehensive American railroad collections in the world.
- The museum has a 40 minute train ride that travels in and out of the museum.
- The museum was briefly featured in the 2015 DW Documentary "A train ride through American history – New Orleans to New York".