Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad: Map, Roster, Logo

Last revised: September 22, 2026

The Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad was the Ma & Pa: a short line from the north side of Baltimore to York, Pennsylvania, laid out like a backward letter C. Reporting mark MPA. The distance was on the order of 77 miles. A Pennsylvania route between the same cities was about 56. Fans loved it for the wrong commercial reasons. Muddy Creek, wooden trestles, slate country at Delta, and a passenger train that was often one coach behind a Richmond 4-4-0.

The company that carried the name was born in February 1901, out of the Baltimore & Lehigh and the York Southern. The ancestors were three-foot railroads, the Peach Bottom of 1868 and the Baltimore & Delta of 1878. The Ma & Pa name ended on December 1, 1999, when the railroad and Yorkrail were merged into the York Railway. Genesee & Wyoming took that company on February 22, 2002. What still rolls is former Pennsylvania track out of York, not the old line over the state line.

Maryland and Pennsylvania 4-4-0 number 6, built by Alco Richmond in 1901, with a short passenger train

4-4-0 No. 6, Alco’s Richmond works, November 1901, serial 3289, with a short passenger train. Consists like this one were the Ma & Pa’s ordinary passenger train. She was retired in April 1952.

On this page: At a glance · Peach Bottom and Muddy Creek · A railroad aimed at Baltimore · February 1901 · System map · Slate, milk, and the last coach · Diesels, and the Maryland District · Emons and the York Railway · Steam roster · Diesel roster

At a glance

The Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad logo. Author’s work.

Item	Detail
Railroad	Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad. Mark MPA. The Ma & Pa
Headquarters	Baltimore. Stone station at North Avenue and Howard Street. After 1958 the remaining railroad lived in York
States	Maryland and Pennsylvania
Genesis	Peach Bottom Railway, incorporated March 24, 1868. First rails, York toward Dallastown, June 30, 1874. Passenger service July 4, 1874
This company	Stockholders approved the merger February 2, 1901. The Maryland & Pennsylvania dates from February 12, 1901
Gauge	3 feet until the York Southern (late 1895) and the Baltimore & Lehigh (August 1900) were standard-gauged. Then 4 ft 8½ in
Route	About 77 miles, Baltimore–Bel Air–Delta–York. A 1930 figure in print is 79. A Pennsylvania route between the cities was about 56 miles
Branches	Dallastown spur, opened May 20, 1899. Peach Bottom branch, standard-gauged by 1898 and abandoned September 1, 1903. A new Peach Bottom alignment opened March 31, 1969, for the nuclear plant
Connections	Pennsylvania and Baltimore & Ohio in Baltimore. Pennsylvania in York, and the Western Maryland there over Pennsylvania track
Last passenger	August 31, 1954. NW2 81, gas-electrics 61 and 62, and a rented Pennsylvania P54 coach
Last steam	November 29, 1956
Maryland District	Last train south of Whiteford, June 11, 1958
End of the name	Merged into the York Railway, mark YRC, December 1, 1999. Genesee & Wyoming control February 22, 2002

Corporate dates follow Hilton, the historical society, and Surface Transportation Board notices in Finance Dockets 33815 and 34148. The steam and diesel tables are below. Information compiled September 21, 2026.

A three-foot railroad in Muddy Creek

The Peach Bottom Railway was incorporated on March 24, 1868, and organized in 1871. The prospectus was a railroad along the southern edge of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia to the Broad Top coal, and maybe Pittsburgh if the money held. It was local money, and it had to cross the Susquehanna and several ridges. George W. Hilton’s point about these narrow-gauge projects is the one that matters: a cheap three-foot line could be built, and then it could not carry the locomotives and cars a general freight railroad eventually needed.

Surveys in the Muddy Creek valley began December 1, 1871. York wanted a railroad of its own and put up subscriptions, so the Middle Division’s west end became York instead of a line aimed only at the river. Grading in the spring of 1874 ran about 27 miles, York to Woodbine by Red Lion, Felton, and the gorge. Track laying started May 1. On June 30, 1874, the rails reached a station near Yoe that they named Dallastown. Passenger service opened on the Fourth of July. By Christmas, trains were into Muddy Creek Forks. Delta, the slate town on the Maryland line, was reached April 15, 1876. Hilton’s figure for what the Middle Division had cost is $472,500. Traffic was steady. It was not enough to bridge the Susquehanna.

The Panic of 1873 had already killed the Western Division, the piece that was supposed to climb toward Gettysburg and the coal at Orbisonia. The Eastern Division, Peach Bottom to the neighborhood of Oxford, got some rail and then stalled at the river. Foreclosure came in 1881. On September 1 the eastern piece was sold away and became the Lancaster, Oxford & Southern, a farm railroad that made its last run on April 14, 1917. The Middle Division was sold December 20, 1881, and renamed the York & Peach Bottom on March 17, 1882.

Charles McConkey still wanted the river. In March 1883 he opened 5.7 miles from Delta down the finished grade to the west bank. There was no bridge, no town that mattered, and very little freight. That Peach Bottom branch was standard-gauged with the rest of the northern line by 1898 and abandoned on September 1, 1903.

Baltimore, by way of Bel Air

Delta sits a little more than 40 miles north of Baltimore, which was a more practical ambition than Philadelphia. A first Maryland & Pennsylvania, organized in 1873 to reach the Susquehanna by way of Conowingo, graded about ten miles and stopped. The line that was actually built began as the Valley & Delta Narrow-Gauge, organized in 1876, to connect Baltimore with Harford County and then with Delta and the Peach Bottom. Milk, farm freight, and Delta slate were the cargo. The gauge was three feet so the two railroads could meet.

The engineers gave the southern line a profile as hard as Muddy Creek. From Baldwin the railroad climbed and twisted through Fallston, Vale, and Bel Air, then north by Forest Hill and Whiteford to the state line. Before construction, the Valley & Delta combined on December 16, 1878, with the Baltimore, Hampden & Towsontown, a graded and unbuilt seven-mile line from North Avenue out to Towson. The merged company was the Baltimore & Delta.

Service from Baltimore to Towson opened April 17, 1882. Fallston came in April 1883, Bel Air in June, and Delta on December 31, 1883. The Maryland Central, which had taken the Baltimore & Delta on August 28, 1882, began regular service into Delta on January 21, 1884, and was in receivership the same year. It came out in December 1888 as the Maryland Central Railway. In January 1889 it took the York & Peach Bottom. Through trains, Baltimore to York, began May 19, 1889. The formal merger, May 5, 1891, created the Baltimore & Lehigh.

The Panic of 1893 broke that company apart again. The York Southern kept the north end, Delta to York. The Baltimore & Lehigh Railway kept the south, Baltimore to Delta. Standard gauge was the achievement of those years. The York Southern finished York–Delta late in 1895. The Baltimore & Lehigh finished Baltimore–Delta in August 1900. The York Southern also opened a 1.25-mile spur into Dallastown on May 20, 1899.

Alexander Brown’s railroad

Alexander Brown & Company, the Baltimore banking house, bought the Baltimore & Lehigh and offered a merger to the York Southern. Stockholders approved it on February 2, 1901. The Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad dates from February 12, 1901. The map was the one people still draw: northeast out of Baltimore to Delta, then northwest to York.

Brown’s money finished the standard-gauge job, replaced the worst of the trestles, and gave Baltimore a stone station at North Avenue and Howard Street. The general offices, the dispatchers, and the shops were in the city. At the peak, about 1913, the railroad had on the order of 573 employees, 16 locomotives in steam, and about 160 pieces of rolling stock. More than half the revenue then was still passengers, mail, and express, with milk, coal, and slate behind them.

The freight map was thin. Hilton counted six industrial sidings in Baltimore, four of them coal docks. Slate at Delta became the commodity the railroad could not afford to lose. Red Lion and Dallastown had furniture and cigar plants. York had a mix of local industry. Less-than-carload freight filled out the rest. Highways took the milk and the farm loads first. The strong years are usually dated through about 1915.

System map, before 1958

System map of the Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad before the Maryland District was abandoned

The Maryland & Pennsylvania as it stood before the Maryland District came out, the classic Baltimore–Delta–York line and the short branches. Author’s collection.

Read the map from Baltimore. The southern district runs north through Towson and Bel Air to the state line at Delta. From Delta the railroad turns west through the slate country and Muddy Creek, Red Lion and Felton, and into York. Dallastown is the short spur. The Peach Bottom stub, down toward the river, is the 1883 branch that was already gone by 1903. After June 1958, everything south of Whiteford is off this map. After the late 1970s, the original line south of York is going too. The railroad that Genesee & Wyoming eventually bought is mostly the former Pennsylvania line from York toward Hanover, plus the Yorkrail line toward Porters, which was a Western Maryland route bought in 1989.

The Milky Way, and August 31, 1954

Passenger trains were numerous on the 1930 timetable and small on the ground. One morning train out of Fallston was called the Milky Way for the milk cans it gathered, more than a thousand gallons on a good day. In the late 1920s the railroad bought two gas-electric cars, 61 and 62, and they took much of what was left, often with a freight car or two on the drawbar. Mail contracts carried the passenger department through the Second World War.

The Post Office cancelled the contract in 1954. The last passenger train ran on August 31, 1954, with enough of a crowd that the Ma & Pa rented a Pennsylvania P54 coach. NW2 81 did the pulling. Motor cars 61 and 62 went along. People came from well outside the valley to ride it. That was the end of Ma & Pa passengers.

Four new switchers, then the end of Maryland

Dieselization started in 1946 with three new Electro-Motive switchers, SW1 70 and NW2s 80 and 81, built for a railroad whose curves would not take a road engine. SW9 82 followed in November 1951. On November 16, 1953, 82 was wrecked at Oakleigh, Maryland, and went back to the builder. She returned from a factory rebuild in January 1954. The last day under steam was November 29, 1956. Switcher 29 and Consolidation 43 were written off that December. Consolidation 41 stayed on the retirement cards until May 1957.

The Maryland District, Baltimore to the state line, had become a railroad without freight. The company asked the Interstate Commerce Commission on July 8, 1957, to abandon south of Whiteford. The last train over that piece ran on June 11, 1958. Scrapping followed. In 1959 the Red Lion Cabinet Company closed, and on October 15 the Ma & Pa applied to abandon the rest. The commission refused. Customers remained on the Pennsylvania District.

Slate was the traffic that was left. Funkhouser’s quarry at Delta shut in 1971. One new branch had opened in the meantime, and it did not replace the quarry. Philadelphia Electric built the Peach Bottom nuclear plant and paid to relay about 3.5 miles toward the river, on a new alignment rather than the 1883 grade. It opened March 31, 1969. The loads were for construction. They did not become a steady freight.

Maryland and Pennsylvania SW9 84, built as Pittsburgh and Lake Erie 8952, at York, Pennsylvania, on April 10, 1982

SW9 No. 84 at York on April 10, 1982. Richard Louderback photo. Author’s collection. She was built in September 1952 as Pittsburgh & Lake Erie 8952, serial 16330, and came to the Ma & Pa in March 1976. She went on to the York Railway with the same number.

Boxcars, a car shop, and a different railroad

Emons Industries, the firm that had been Amfre-Grant, took control on October 4, 1971. The new owner had two ideas. One was the incentive per-diem boxcar: a short line could put new cars on the national fleet and collect a daily rental, then about $20, while the cars wandered. Emons bought the cars and leased them to the Ma & Pa. The other idea was track with customers on it. After Conrail started on April 1, 1976, the Ma & Pa picked up former Pennsylvania lines: about 18.5 miles from York to Hanover, a three-mile piece to Hyde on the old Northern Central, and the Pennsylvania facilities in York. In March 1976 the locomotive fleet gained three secondhand units to match, SW9 84, NW2 85, and GP7 86.

Maryland subsidized the old Frederick branch south of Hanover as far as Walkersville. Hurricane Agnes had already taken out the Monocacy River bridge in 1972, so Frederick itself was gone. The state dropped the subsidy, and rail service stopped at the state line on March 31, 1978. Emons embargoed the original line beyond Red Lion. The last of that nineteenth-century railroad south of York came out in the years around 1980. The Red Lion agency closed November 1, 1980. Revenue service to Red Lion is dated to 1984 in the historical society’s account.

The York yard built the per-diem cars, in the open at first and, from 1977, in a shop that at its peak could finish three cars a day, in 50- and 70-foot lengths. Building stopped in 1981. The boxcar glut put Emons through a bankruptcy in 1984, and most of the fleet went to creditors. The leasing operation was finished by 1991. What Emons kept, and added, was a different map. In 1989 it bought the former Western Maryland line from York to Porters Sideling, where it meets CSX, and ran that piece as Yorkrail.

Maryland and Pennsylvania 40-foot boxcars at York, Pennsylvania, in August 1976

Ma & Pa 40-foot boxcars at York in August 1976, the first summer of the per-diem fleet. American-Rails.com collection.

On December 1, 1999, the Maryland & Pennsylvania and Yorkrail merged into the York Railway, mark YRC. The Surface Transportation Board’s notice in Finance Docket 33815 is the document. The physical assets went to two lessors that kept the old names, Maryland and Pennsylvania Railroad, LLC, and Yorkrail, LLC. The operating company was new. Genesee & Wyoming filed to control Emons Transportation Group, and with it the York Railway, in Finance Docket 34148. That transaction closed on or just after February 22, 2002.

The York Railway still works York. Its mains run southwest to CSX at Hanover, on the former Pennsylvania, and to Porters, on the former Western Maryland. A short piece of original Ma & Pa track remains in York. The gorge, Bel Air, and the slate at Delta are trails and memory.

Standard-gauge steam

This is the standard-gauge list: York Southern and Baltimore & Lehigh engines that came into the 1901 company, and the engines the Ma & Pa bought new. The three-foot locomotives of the Peach Bottom and Baltimore & Delta years are a separate fleet and are not reproduced here. Serial numbers are the historical society’s builder numbers where that card prints one. A dash means the card in hand did not.

No.	Type	Builder	Serial	Built	Retired	Notes
1	4-4-0	Baldwin	14354	July 1895	June 1921	Ex-York Southern. Class 8-26C-515. Stephenson gear. 62-inch drivers
2	2-6-0	Baldwin	—	Aug. 1895	Sep. 1927	Ex-York Southern. Passenger engine, used as a switcher after 1909. Class 8-28D-125 on the whistle list
3	4-4-0	Baldwin	14547	Nov. 1895	Dec. 1920	Ex-York Southern. Class 8-26C-517
4	4-4-0	Alco–Richmond	3287	Nov. 1901	Mar. 1947	Ma & Pa’s own passenger engine. 62-inch drivers, 17×24 cylinders
5	4-4-0	Alco–Richmond	3288	Nov. 1901	June 1936	Last used September 22, 1930. Sold to Luray Iron & Metal, November 1939
6	4-4-0	Alco–Richmond	3289	Nov. 1901	Apr. 1952	The engine in the photograph. Superheater added May 1920
20	0-4-0ST	PW&B Wilmington	—	Sep. 1887	1906	Ex-Pennsylvania, bought by the Baltimore & Lehigh in August 1900. Sold to the Canton Railroad, June 1917
21	4-6-0	PRR Altoona	—	Oct. 1881	May 1909	Ex-Pennsylvania, to the Baltimore & Lehigh in December 1900. Sold to the Canton Railroad, November 1912
22	4-6-0	PRR Altoona	—	Oct. 1881	Sep. 1914	Same purchase as 21. Sold to the South Florida & Gulf, September 1914
23	2-8-0	Baldwin	—	Jan. 1902	Mar. 1947	50-inch drivers, 19×24. Southern valve gear from 1915
24	2-8-0	Baldwin	—	Jan. 1902	June 1936	Sold to Luray Iron & Metal, May 1936
25	2-8-0	Baldwin	—	Apr. 1905	Nov. 1939	Last used November 13, 1932. Sold to United Iron & Metal
26 (1st)	2-6-0	Baldwin	—	1905	—	The number was reused by the 1912 Consolidation. The society’s published card for 26 is that later engine
26 (2nd)	2-8-0	Baldwin	—	Nov. 1912	Mar. 1947	50-inch drivers, 19×24. Class 10-32E-113 on the whistle list
27	4-6-0	Baldwin	29760	Dec. 1906	Dec. 1955	Cost $11,874. Walschaerts gear and a superheater from April 1922. 56-inch drivers
28	4-6-0	Baldwin	—	July 1910	Aug. 1955	Same price as 27. Sold to M. N. Landy, September 1955
29	0-6-0	Baldwin	—	Mar. 1913	Dec. 1956	20×26 cylinders, 50-inch drivers. Stephenson gear
30	0-6-0	Baldwin	—	Nov. 1913	Apr. 1956	Built with Walschaerts gear. Hilton called 29 and 30 the jewels of the roster
41	2-8-0	Baldwin	—	June 1914	May 1957	Cost $16,384. With 42, leased to the Lehigh & New England about 1914–16, too heavy for Ma & Pa trestles until those were rebuilt. 22×28, 51-inch drivers
42	2-8-0	Baldwin	—	June 1914	Jan. 1952	Same lease as 41. Feedwater heater added in 1929
43	2-8-0	Baldwin	—	June 1925	Dec. 1956	Last new steam engine. Steel cab. 22×28, 51-inch drivers

Retirement dates are the historical society’s. The last day the railroad operated a steam locomotive was November 29, 1956. No. 41’s May 1957 date is the card, after that last fire.

All-time diesel roster

Every diesel-electric the Ma & Pa numbered. Gas-electrics 61 and 62 are not in the table. No. 86 and No. 1506 are one GP7. A second SW9, serial 15559, was ordered under the number 83 and cancelled before delivery. “Order” is EMD’s order when a source prints one.

No.	Model	Builder	Serial	Order	Built	Notes
70	SW1	EMD	4162	—	Nov. 1946	New. Sold May 1959. Became Republic Steel 326
80	NW2	EMD	4160	E770	Dec. 1946	New. Sold November 1959. Became Republic Steel 334
81	NW2	EMD	4161	E770	Dec. 1946	New. Pulled the last passenger train, August 31, 1954. Donated to the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania; Glatfelter had used her at Spring Grove before the 1997 gift
82	SW9	EMD	15558	—	Nov. 1951	New. Wrecked at Oakleigh, November 16, 1953. Factory-rebuilt January 1954. Later with the Ma & Pa preservation group. Society retirement date May 2002, after the York Railway had the name
83	SW, later SW900M	EMC / EMD	654	—	Mar. 1937	Built as Philadelphia, Bethlehem & New England 206. Some lists call the original an SC. Rebuilt to an SW900M in September 1957. To the Ma & Pa in January 1968, ex-S&H 23. Later Stewartstown 11
84	SW9	EMD	16330	—	Sep. 1952	Built as P&LE 8952. Also carried P&LE 1243 and Montour 85. To the Ma & Pa in March 1976. To York Railway 84. The York photograph
85	NW2	EMD	1455	—	Oct. 1941	Ex-Reading 92. To the Ma & Pa in March 1976
86	GP7	EMD	18421	—	May 1953	Ex-Reading 621. To the Ma & Pa in March 1976. Later renumbered 1506 and passed to the York Railway, then the East Penn, then the Reading Company Technical & Historical Society
1500	CF7	EMD / ATSF	18923	—	Rebuilt Mar. 1978	Ex-ATSF CF7 2417, rebuilt from F7A 275L of November 1953. To York Railway 1500
1502	CF7	EMD / ATSF	9612	—	Rebuilt Jan. 1978	Ex-ATSF CF7 2426, from F7A 330L of May 1950, originally ATSF 311L. To York Railway 1502
1504	CF7	EMD / ATSF	13731	—	Rebuilt Jan. 1978	Ex-ATSF CF7 2425, from F7A 261L of August 1951. To York Railway 1504. Later scrapped

Builder numbers and the CF7 lineages follow The Diesel Shop’s Ma & Pa roster, revised February 1, 2015, checked against the historical society’s diesel pages. No. 81’s order, E770, is the museum account of that locomotive.

Sources

George W. Hilton, The Ma & Pa: A History of the Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad, second edition, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999. The corporate chain, Muddy Creek, the $472,500 Middle Division, and the shape of the freight business.
George W. Hilton, American Narrow Gauge Railroads, Stanford University Press, 1990.
Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad Historical Society, standard-gauge steam cards and diesel pages, maparailroadhist.org. Builder numbers, retirement dates, and the Oakleigh wreck.
The Diesel Shop, Maryland & Pennsylvania all-time roster, John Komanesky, revised February 1, 2015. Serials, the cancelled SW9, and the CF7s.
Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania / Hawkins account of NW2 81. Order E770, serial 4161, and the 1997 donation.
Surface Transportation Board, Finance Docket 33815. Merger into the York Railway, consummated December 1, 1999.
Surface Transportation Board, Finance Docket 34148. Genesee & Wyoming control, on or shortly after February 22, 2002.
William Moedinger Jr., “The Ma & Pa,” Trains, December 1941.

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