From
The Interchange to Emmitsburg
Memories
of the Emmitsburg Railroad
(Originally
published in the Frederick Post 1933)
A brief but interesting
history of the old Emmitsburg Railroad was published in
the October 16, 1933 issue of the Frederick Post. We
felt the story would prove interesting to local readers
Remember, the year is 1933.
Its rolling stock
consisting of one engine, a combination passenger and
baggage coach, and a freight car, the Emmitsburg
Railroad today stands forth as one of the most colorful
and unique short line railroads in America. For nearly
three quarters of a century residents of the northern
section of Frederick County have fostered the single
track system on its daily gyrations between Emmitsburg
and Rocky Ridge, a seven mile stretch connecting the
midget spur with the Western Maryland at the latter
named hamlet.
Founded shortly after
the War Between the States, the line foundered after a
few years none too successful operation and went into
the hands of receivers. In 1897, Vincent Sebold,
Emmitsburg attorney and businessman, sensing the need
for such a road, formed a syndicate, chiefly of local
capital, which purchased the system. The property was
developed under Mr. Sebold’s direction and until about
15 years ago was one of the substantial and best short
line railroads in the country.
Since shortly after the
Civil War, the under size locomotives have taken turns
in puffing between terminals ahead of a few rattling
cars, caravan that now seem a little better than a
symbol of snorting defiance carrying on the ghosts left
there from better days. Hunting around the dusty corner
of Emmitsburg’s little station, we found genial
"Jim" Alvey, manager of the line now for seven
years, hiding from a blistering mid—afternoon sun on
the platforms only bench. "We don’t intend to
quit!" he snapped when sounded on the road’s
staying qualities.
Like so many of the
others who have labored in half of the organization
since the days when Emmitsburg still echoed with
Gettysburg’s gun fire, Mr. Alvey speaks as an honest
to steam railroader, having been drawn to the spirit of
steel and ties while working for his father, a Baltimore
& Ohio veteran. As he spoke, Old Number Six gained
momentum down the main line on her afternoon trip to
"The Junction," ridiculous puffs from a tall
smokestack giving emphasis to the Alvey assurance. But
neither the clank of huge driving wheels nor the clipped
words of young Jim Alvey could drown out the roar of a
speedy transport bus on a nearby highway.
Time was when the
Emmitsburg Railroad actually fed life to the community
in Tom’s Creek Valley. Born in the day of railroad
booms, the tiny line found the six daily round trips
between points barely enough to take care of all freight
and passengers clamoring for attention. Cars had to be
borrowed from the Western Maryland transport cattle,
coal, milk, grain, and lumber.
Residents of Frederick
County treasured their passes in big leather folders,
and rode often. Old timers still tell skeptical
youngsters how the Express often pulled six cars or more
on the one trip. The road has always been a community
pride, operating free from outside rail
affiliations.
In the energetic spirit
of its pioneer days, there was little time for recording
of person who rode Emmitsburg #8 but the names which
trickle down through its history are all names familiar
to Post Office patriarchs in the northern half of
Frederick County. They can tell you how the good Sisters
of Charity at St. Joseph College near Emmitsburg helped
watch over the lines beginning. They relate how popular
Rev. John McCloskey, then at Mt. St. Mary’s College,
gave kind assistance. Most of them claim that James Owen
headed the system as its first President Doctor James A.
Elder bought the first baggage and passenger cars, the
purchases costing eleven hundred and twenty—two
hundred dollars respectively.
Of the old-time
employees of the railroad proper who have long ago
stepped down from the cab and coach in the last Big
Terminal, they still tell of Engineer Cornilius Gelwicks.
It was he who, during of the many damaging winters known
to the project during the early days, had to be taken,
with both arms frozen, from the cab of his, snowbound
engine after trying in vain to buck the white drifts
back toward Emmitsburg from Rocky Ridge. They tell how
Dan Gelwicks kept up the steam with a roaring fire while
brother Cornelius manned the throttle.
They describe William
Morrison’s fine record as station master and how one
of his young hero worshipers insisted he owned the
railroad since Western Maryland’s initials on a
borrowed coach "proved Bill owns the line." A
few of the grownup "boys" tell how they
stopped fishing down where the train rattles over Tom’s
Creek trestle to water Engineer ‘Dad’ Devine as he
rode by with a fast whistle in inevitable reply. On the
night runs, those same "boys" squinted out
from tiny farmhouse windows to see if Fireman Theodore
Burdner kept his promise with an extra bit of coal
"to make the sparks fly high."
Perhaps of those still
present who can tell with authority of the gala years, a
smiling little lady who reigns supreme over a typical
Emmitsburg home on West Main Street enjoys the
retrospection most. Mrs. J. Bernard Welty was just one
of the many kids" on board when the railroad opened
operations with a festive free round trip one spring
afternoon ever so long ago," but she still laughs
over the way "we shouted, sang and rang bells all
the way down and all the way up." The town turned
out that decorated day and the Emmitsburg Cornet Band
apologized to nobody.
Engineer John
Highmiller wore a wide grin on a clean face and Fireman
Bill Houck pulled hard on the whistle as the well
groomed locomotive started off with its train one coach
on that inaugural jaunt. Mrs. Welty estimated the number
of her juvenile escorts on that trip as "about
25", with a few old folks along to see that we didn’t
fall off."
A delegation of girls
waved encouragement as the "Special" swayed
past Saint Joseph College’s little red brick station.
They had already promised a trip or two "all the
way down to the Junction and back"; trips made in
holiday style under the watchful eye of the Nuns and by
courtesy of the system’s fathers. Cheering farm folk
lined the fences down along Dry Bridge stop. Wild yells
challenged the engine whistle on the dash past Long’s,
Motters, Ridgeway, and Appolds. Grinning trainmen of the
big brother road at The Junction, stopped oiling their
giants as one of railroad’s sauciest newcomers
whistled its hilarious way out of the bushes and clanged
to a wheezy halt.
If cows failed to stop
the train in the summer, the snows had better success in
the winter. The system’s track wanders through several
deep cuts which, in the cold season, quickly filled with
obstinate drifts. High snows often interrupted the
schedule for days and it was fairly common for the train
to creep down to Rocky Ridge only to find the return
trail blocked.
While returning to
Emmitsburg one winter night a Mt. St. Mary’s College
basketball team under his wing, "Mike"
Thompson, then the Mount varsity coach and now Burgess
of Emmitsburg, found rail transportation out of Rocky
Ridge frigidly absent. The boys and mentor spent a wild
night in the diminutive Junction station while snow
plows, rushed onto the spur by the larger system,
battered away in search of the single track once more.
After, when stranded near Emmitsburg, the train’s crew
sent distress calls to the good villagers themselves who
responded with a willing corps of shovelers.
It was almost
inevitable that, in the road’s less pretentious days,
it should become "The Dinky" and by that title
it now operates. Then too, with so much of its daily
passenger list in prosperous times composed of students
from Saint Joseph’s and Mount Saint Mary’s, it was
to be expected that collegiate puns would be heaped atop
the unique rolling stock’s reputation.
Indeed much of the line’s
past history is interwoven with that of the two
Emmitsburg schools. For many years it was the chief
means of transportation for the students to and from
college, a "Christmas Special" made up of
borrowed carrying the bulk of the undergraduate bodies
on the first lap homeward at Yuletide. Many new students
got his or her first taste of Emmitsburg college life
during a wild ride on "The Dinky" in
September.
Perhaps the oldest
former employee of the railroad now living is Mr. Joseph
C. Rosenstael who sits in the lobby of Emmitsburg’s
lone hotel and matches the swing of his rocking chair to
that effected by the rambling "Dinky" in her
glittering epoch.
Mr. Rosensteel was a
station master at Emmitsburg from 1888 to 1893 while his
younger brother, John, held a similar post at Motters, a
few miles, down the line. With a vivid cane,
"Joe" Rosensteel can show you how the imported
snow plow used to make a flying dash at high drifts near
Dry Bridge "and bounce back like a rubber
ball."
He can relate how the
town’s oldest citizen was once coaxed to take his
first ride on the rails; a ride he spent staring at the
roof of the coach muttering, "She’s movin’, gol
darn it, she’s movin’" The Rosensteel laugh
rings loudest though when he tells of those
"Lemons."
It was perhaps the most
noted shipment ever carried over the line when an
Emmitsburg merchant, for reasons still vague, imported
two carloads of lemons. The town, unable to absorb the
sudden oversupply, nearly went lemon mad and ex-Station
master Rosensteel still chuckles at the memory of
"all those lemons with nobody around to eat
them."
Mr. Rosensteel doesn’t
mind giving his age, but you have to try to guess first
for his own piece of mind. "if you want to know how
old I am, he says, "I have you there. The boys at
the station used to say you can look a horse in the
month, count his teeth and tell his age. Well, I’m an
old rail horse but the plan does not work here." He
hasn’t a tooth, but he’s eighty-three nevertheless.
Read
other stores about the Emmitsburg Railroad
Have your own memories of
the Emmitsburg Railroad?
If so, send them to us at history@emmitsburg.net
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