The Dutch Line (Western Maryland): History, Map, Operations
Published: September 25, 2026
By: Adam Burns
Railroaders called the Western Maryland’s Hanover Subdivision the Dutch Line, for the Pennsylvania Dutch country it crossed. It left the main line at Emory Grove, Maryland, ran north through Hanover, and came back to the main line at Highfield, with a branch from Porters Sideling into York. For most of its life it was a local railroad: stone, paper, merchandise, and passenger trains to Hanover, Gettysburg, and York. After Hurricane Agnes broke the old main line in 1972, it became the way freight got from Baltimore to Hagerstown.
FA-2s #302 and #301, ahead of Reading 4-8-4 #2102, on a Steam Tours excursion at Orrtanna, Pennsylvania, February 5, 1972. Michael Eagleson photo. Orrtanna sits on the hill between Gettysburg and Highfield, the one piece of the Dutch Line that regularly needed helpers.
On this page: At a glance · Baltimore & Harrisburg · The line on the ground · A day on the Dutch Line · What pulled the trains · After Agnes
At a glance
| Item | Detail |
|---|---|
| Railroad | Western Maryland Railway. Hanover Subdivision, called the Dutch Line. The 1893 line into York was the York Subdivision |
| Route | Emory Grove, Maryland, to Highfield Junction, via Hanover, Gettysburg, and Orrtanna. York branch from Porters Sideling |
| Acquired | Baltimore & Hanover and the Gettysburg Railroad, late 1886, consolidated that year as the Baltimore & Harrisburg Railway |
| Finished | West to Highfield, June 1889. Northeast to York, 1893 |
| Junctions | Emory Grove and Highfield, on the WM main. Porters Sideling, for York. York, with the Pennsylvania and the Maryland & Pennsylvania |
| Day’s work | Locals, a stone train off the quarry north of Hanover, paper and merchandise toward York, passenger locals to the three Pennsylvania towns |
| The hill | Gettysburg to Highfield, with Orrtanna on the grade. Helper country |
| Today | CSX Hanover Subdivision, Baltimore–Hagerstown. York Railway on the old line from Porters Sideling into York |
Two short railroads, and a name
John Mifflin Hood spent the 1880s turning a local Maryland railroad into a regional one. Late in 1886 the Western Maryland took in the Baltimore & Hanover and the Gettysburg Railroad. The first reached Hanover from a connection with the WM main at Emory Grove. The second carried the line on through Gettysburg. Hood’s company consolidated them that same year as the Baltimore & Harrisburg Railway, then finished the missing pieces: west to Highfield, Maryland, in June 1889, where the new line met the main again near the state line, and northeast from Porters Sideling to York in 1893.
York gave the railroad the Pennsylvania and the Maryland & Pennsylvania. Hanover and Gettysburg gave it the Pennsylvania Dutch towns the crews already knew. The Hanover Subdivision picked up the nickname from the country, and the nickname outlasted the corporate title. On a Western Maryland map the line is a bow north of the main: out at Emory Grove, through the Pennsylvania towns, and back at Highfield. The York branch is the arrow off that bow at Porters Sideling.
The line on the ground
Western Maryland system map, 1941 Official Guide of the Railways. The Dutch Line is the bow north of the Baltimore–Hagerstown main, through Hanover and Gettysburg, with the branch into York.
East to west, a crew leaving Emory Grove Tower climbed into Carroll County and then Pennsylvania: Hampstead, Manchester, and Lineboro, then Hanover. Hanover had the yard, the quarry on the north side of town, and, for years, an engine house. Porters Sideling, west of Hanover, is where the York Subdivision left for Spring Grove and York. The Hanover line itself continued through New Oxford and Gettysburg, then tackled the ridge at Orrtanna and came down to Highfield Junction. Highfield is also on the old main line, a few miles east of Pen Mar and the long descent into Hagerstown. A train could enter the Dutch Line from Baltimore at Emory Grove, or from Hagerstown at Highfield, and never touch the Westminster main at all.
That geography is why the line mattered twice. In Hood’s day it was a way into Pennsylvania markets the main line did not reach. After 1972 it was the only Western Maryland still open between Baltimore and the west.
A day on the Dutch Line
The daily railroad was a local railroad. Out of Hanover, crews switched the town, lifted loads at the quarry, and peddled cars toward Gettysburg, Emory Grove, and York. The quarry on the north side of Hanover belonged to Bethlehem Steel and shipped crushed stone toward the Sparrows Point mill. That stone train was the one heavy, repetitive job on the subdivision, and it ran most days of the week. The quarry later went to Vulcan Materials. The rock still moves, now on CSX, toward Baltimore.
The York branch had a different customer. P. H. Glatfelter’s paper mill at Spring Grove, between Porters Sideling and York, took coal and chemicals and gave back paper. York itself was an interchange: the Pennsylvania on one side of the terminal, the Ma & Pa on the other, and the Western Maryland in between. Merchandise, agricultural traffic, and the occasional car of finished paper were the ordinary consist. Nothing on the Dutch Line looked like a Connellsville time freight. The Alphabet Route used Hagerstown and Shippensburg. This line fed them.
Passenger service was local, and it was the reason a small city such as Gettysburg or Hanover appeared in a Western Maryland timetable. The trains that made the Chicago limiteds famous used the main line through Hagerstown and Hillen Station in Baltimore. The Dutch Line’s own varnish was a coach local. Those locals were gone well before the railroad’s last passenger train, the Durbin mixed of April 10, 1959. What fans remember instead are the excursions. On February 5, 1972, Steam Tours, Inc., put Reading 4-8-4 2102 over the line, with Western Maryland FA-2s 302 and 301 coupled ahead. The photograph at Orrtanna is that trip, in the snow, on the grade where a heavy train needed help even when the train was a fan trip.
What pulled the trains
In steam years the Dutch Line drew the east end’s ordinary engines. Passenger locals were Pacific jobs, the K-1s and then the larger K-2s, the same classes that handled the railroad’s other varnish. Freights were Consolidations. The line never rated a Challenger or a Potomac. Those engines belonged to the Connellsville main and the country east of Cumberland. The one hill that changed the assignment was the ridge between Gettysburg and Highfield. A heavy stone train or a long excursion took a helper there, which is what the two FA-2s are doing in the Orrtanna photograph.
Diesels replaced that pattern without changing the work. RS-3s and Geeps covered the locals and the York branch. FA-2s and F-units covered the heavier freights and, later, the fan trips. The four-axle Alcos and EMDs fit the curves and the short sidings. Six-axle power showed up when the stone train was long enough to need it, and again after the line became a through route. The class-by-class list is the diesel roster. The steam classes are the steam roster.
Highfield Junction is the west end of the subdivision, which is why so many Western Maryland photographs that look like “the main line at Highfield” are actually the Dutch Line arriving. BL2s 81 and 82 were there on July 15, 1961. They were east-end branch power, and Highfield was one end of their railroad.
The line that outlasted the main
Hurricane Agnes, in June 1972, broke the old main between Westminster and Cedarhurst. The company put it back, and another storm took it out again three years later. Chessie did not rebuild it. From then on, Baltimore to Hagerstown meant the Dutch Line: Emory Grove, Hanover, Gettysburg, Orrtanna, Highfield, and down the main into the Hagerstown yard. A branch that had spent eighty years peddling stone and paper became the through freight route. The Western Maryland merged into the Baltimore & Ohio on May 1, 1983. The trains did not stop.
CSX still calls the route the Hanover Subdivision and still runs it from Baltimore to Hagerstown. The York branch left the Class I map in 1989, when Emons bought Porters Sideling–York and operated it as Yorkrail. That piece is the York Railway now, a Genesee & Wyoming road, and it still interchanges with CSX at Porters. The old main line east of Highfield, through Thurmont and Union Bridge toward the Reisterstown country, is a different survivor, the Maryland Midland. The Dutch Line is the one that still carries a through freight.
Related reading
- Western Maryland Railway · Steam roster · Diesel roster
- Maryland & Pennsylvania · Northern Central Railway
- Connellsville Extension · Baltimore & Ohio
Sources
- Cook, Roger, and Karl Zimmermann. The Western Maryland Railway: Fireballs and Black Diamonds. San Diego: Howell-North, 1981. Baltimore & Harrisburg, the Hanover Subdivision, and the York extension
- Official Guide of the Railways, 1941. System map used on this page
- Western Maryland Railway. Corporate history of the Hanover and York subdivisions, as summarized in the company record and in the railroad’s own subdivision list: Emory Grove to Highfield, Porters Sideling to York
- American-Rails.com, Western Maryland and Maryland & Pennsylvania. Agnes, the Westminster break, and the 1989 sale of Porters–York to Yorkrail
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