Westminster Train

Westminster Train - By Kevin Dayhoff, Thursday evening 11April2019

I found myself once again in the perfect spot to take a video of the Westminster train coming through Westminster.

One of my fondest memories of growing up in Westminster is the railroad. Over fifty years later I still live within easy earshot of the train whistle as the train chugs its way through town. The railroad in town is interwoven throughout much of the fabric of Westminster history.

After the Civil War, Westminster’s (Carroll County, Maryland,) economy began to get away from the wagon stop, barroom, and hotelier business and began its journey to being a regional mercantile center, where the unfinished goods were brought to town and exchanged for finished goods and a great deal of capital began to accumulate and concentrate in town.

Westminster was not always a mercantile powerhouse, as noted by Joseph D. Brooks, the mayor of Westminster from 1892 to 1895 when he gave an address on the county birthday, January 19, 1923.

“During (the decades before and after Carroll become a county in 1837) Westminster, the meeting place of the Germans and English, remained dormant. Their ideas of living were different and there was no real work to build a town of any consequence,” said Mayor Brooks.

He continued by observing that “The town owes its growth to three things, all of which happened in spite of its residents. The building of the Baltimore pike, the central location in the county, which made it the county seat, and the construction of the Western Maryland Railroad. In strictly turnpike days it was a wagon hamlet filled with barrooms and all that accompanied them.”

In the period after the American Civil War to the turn of the century in 1900 was witness to a great expansion of the industrial, commercial and employment base in Westminster which was partially fueled by the arrival of the railroad in 1861.

One of the first meetings to bring the railroad to town occurred at the Court House on April 7, 1847. It would take another 14 years of studies, resolutions, commissions, and committees to get the railroad to town.

During the Battle of Gettysburg, July 1-3, 1863, Westminster and the railroad played a pivotal role in the outcome of the battle. Immediately after Union General Meade replaced General Hooker on June 28, 1863, one of the first decisions he made was to use the Western Maryland Railroad from Baltimore to Westminster, for secure communications and as a main supply line, according to information found in “Just South of Gettysburg,” by Frederick Shriver Klein, W. Harold Redcay, and G. Thomas LeGore.

Many of the newer folks in Carroll County might be interested to know that for almost 100 years, from 1861 to 1960, a portion of the economic vitality of downtown Westminster was fueled by a thriving passenger rail service, this necessitated building a first rate freight and passenger station in downtown Westminster.

December 1896 was a time of great excitement in downtown Westminster. It was in that time period that the “new” Westminster Train Station was completed.

The previous wooden station was literally loaded on to a train car and transported to New Windsor.

In the late 1800s and well into the 1900s, the passenger rail service brought folks from Washington, D.C., Hagerstown and Baltimore to shop and spend leisurely summer excursions in Westminster.

The passenger train service was discontinued on October 3, 1960, when it could no longer compete with the same service that was provided by buses.

Unfortunately, the Westminster Train Station was lost to history when it was unceremoniously torn down in 1961 and turned into a parking lot.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA. He has written about the train in Westminster since the mid-1960s and portions of this article have appears in various publications in the past.

www.kevindayhoff.net

http://www.youtube.com/kevinda...

Related: Westminster Md. Train 10Apr2019: Westminster Train: The arrival of the 7 p.m. Maryland Midland train in Westminster at the beginning of the annual Westminster Main Street Mile has become a tradition all to itself. 10April2019

Related: https://youtu.be/iRyuUcbqGpM Westminster Train By Kevin Dayhoff, Thursday evening 11April2019