Delaware, Maryland and Virginia Railroad

The Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia Railroad is a defunct American railroad that operated passenger service from Broad Street Station in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Franklin City, Virginia. At the latter city, steamship connections could be made to Chincoteague, Virginia on the Atlantic Ocean-side exterior islands. The railroad was built out to Chincoteague Bay for the purpose of transporting oysters and other shellfish to Philadelphia.[1]

By the 1910s the Pennsylvania Railroad had leased out or purchased the railroad, appearing on the Pennsylvania Railroad tables of the PRR section of the Official Guide of the Railways of North America.[2] By the end of the 1920s the line was among those rail lines throughout the Delmarva Peninsula that the PRR fully acquired.

The railroad station in Georgetown, Delaware

The Pennsylvania Railroad passenger trains operated along the route until the late 1940s, stopping at towns just a few miles inland from resort towns on the eastern coast of the Delmarva Peninsula. Frequency along the route dwindled from three trains in each direction at the opening of the 1910s to one train a day in each direction in 1941. The noteworthy towns along the route, south of Wilmington, Delaware consisted of:[3]

  • Harrington, Delaware
  • Ellendale
  • Georgetown
  • Selbyville
  • Berlin, Maryland
  • Snow Hill, Virginia
  • Franklin City

The railroad had a branch route in southeastern Delaware, that broke off from the above route at Georgetown, and veered east to Lewes, Delaware and then turned south to Rehoboth Beach, Delaware.[4] However, service on this branch route was eliminated by 1941.[5]

Passenger service on the line was entirely eliminated by 1949. Today, the line is now truncated to Snow Hill, and the properties have been acquired by the Maryland and Delaware Railroad.

References
  1. Reprint of article from Norfolk Virginian-Pilot of January 6, 2008. Retrieved April 8, 2008.
  2. "Pennsylvania Railroad, Table 101: Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Railroad". Official Guide of the Railways. National Railway Publication Company. 42 (8). January 1910.
  3. "Pennsylvania Railroad, Table 81: Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Branch". Official Guide of the Railways. National Railway Publication Company. 78 (12). May 1946.
  4. "Pennsylvania Railroad, Table 101: Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Railroad". Official Guide of the Railways. National Railway Publication Company. 42 (8). January 1910.
  5. "Pennsylvania Railroad, Table 81: Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Branch". Official Guide of the Railways. National Railway Publication Company. 74 (1). May 1941.
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