MARC Train: Maryland Commuter Rail History, Lines & Roster

Last revised: September 14, 2026

MARC is Maryland’s public commuter railroad: three lines into Washington Union Station on other people’s iron. The Penn Line uses Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. The Camden and Brunswick lines use CSX, the old Baltimore & Ohio. The brand dates from 1984. The trains are older than that. Maryland began paying the B&O’s Washington suburban deficit on March 1, 1974, and picked up the ex-Pennsylvania Baltimore–Washington locals after Conrail threatened to drop them in 1977. The Northeast Rail Service Act let Conrail shed commuter trains on January 1, 1983; Amtrak has run the Penn Line for the state ever since.

MARC train P891 arriving at Frederick Maryland on the former B and O Old Main Line June 12 2019

MARC train P891 arrives in Frederick, Maryland, along the B&O’s Old Main Line on June 12, 2019. Jon Wright photo.

On this page: At a glance · Three corridors · The state takes the trains · Penn Line · Camden Line · Brunswick Line · Silver Spring, 1996 · All-time locomotive roster · What still runs

At a glance

Item	Detail
Owner	Maryland Transit Administration (MTA), Maryland Department of Transportation
Reporting mark	MARC
First state subsidy	B&O Washington suburban trains, March 1, 1974
Penn Line under Amtrak	January 1, 1983 (NERSA; Conrail off the commuter business)
MARC brand	1984. Originally Maryland Rail Commuter; later Maryland Area Regional Commuter
Lines	Penn (Amtrak NEC). Camden (CSX Capital Sub). Brunswick (CSX Metropolitan / Cumberland / Old Main Line, plus Frederick branch)
Route-miles / stations	About 187 miles; 42 stations (MTA / APTA order of magnitude)
Operators	Amtrak (Penn Line). Alstom (Camden and Brunswick; Bombardier contract 2013, Alstom after the 2021 purchase)
Frederick branch	Passenger return December 17, 2001. B&O had ended Frederick locals in November 1949
Silver Spring collision	February 16, 1996. MARC 286 and Amtrak Capitol Limited 29. Eleven dead
Not this page	Fares, CharmPass, boarding etiquette. B&O, PRR, Amtrak, and CSX encyclopedias

Information compiled September 14, 2026. Schedules and fares: mta.maryland.gov/marc-train.

Three corridors

Every MARC train is a public train on a private-era railroad. The Camden Line sits on the Baltimore & Ohio’s original Washington route. B&O passenger service Baltimore–Ellicott’s Mills began May 24, 1830; Baltimore–Washington on August 25, 1835. That is still, in the railroad sense, among the oldest passenger assignments in the country. The company encyclopedia is Baltimore & Ohio.

The Brunswick Line is the B&O west of Washington: Old Main Line to Point of Rocks, Metropolitan Branch (1873) into the District, Cumberland Subdivision on to Martinsburg, West Virginia. Frederick was a branch off the Old Main Line from 1831; B&O dropped the locals in November 1949. Amtrak’s Blue Ridge later used the Martinsburg end as a Washington commuter-in-all-but-name. MARC inherited that geography, not the Amtrak train.

The Penn Line is the other Baltimore–Washington railroad: the Pennsylvania’s Baltimore & Potomac (completed 1872) and the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore north of Baltimore, combined as the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington in 1902. Electrification reached Washington in 1935 (Baltimore 1933). Penn Central took the trains in 1968. Conrail took them April 1, 1976. The company encyclopedia is Pennsylvania Railroad. Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor is the host, not a second MARC encyclopedia; that hub is Amtrak.

The state takes the trains

By the early 1970s the B&O and Penn Central were still running Washington suburban trains without a state check. Amtrak had taken the long-distance names on May 1, 1971. The locals were left with the freights. In early 1974 the B&O moved to discontinue. Maryland DOT began a 50 percent subsidy of the Washington–Brunswick and Washington–Baltimore B&O trains on March 1, 1974—the first state-sponsored commuter rail into Washington. A 1975 operating agreement put the rolling stock and the full operating deficit on the state.

Conrail inherited the unsubsidized ex-PRR Baltimore–Washington electrics on April 1, 1976, and threatened to drop them April 1, 1977. Maryland began paying. Aging MP54 multiple-units still did most of the work until 1978, when leased New Jersey Arrow cars appeared. Amtrak and Maryland used some of those cars for a Philadelphia–Washington commuter, the Chesapeake, from April 30, 1978, to October 1983. BWI Rail Station opened for Amtrak and Conrail on October 26, 1980.

The Northeast Rail Service Act of 1981 is the same statute on the 1980s page that let Conrail stop running commuter trains. Effective January 1, 1983, Maryland paid Amtrak to operate the ex-PRR line (briefly marketed AMDOT). Chessie, then CSX, kept running the B&O pair under the state contract. A 1983 marketing study produced the MARC name and logotype in 1984: one public face on trains that still had B&O or Amtrak crews, and cars that in those years included leases from New Jersey Transit. The State Railroad Administration later folded into the Mass Transit Administration in 1992. That agency is now MTA.

CSX absorbed the B&O on April 30, 1987, and kept the Camden and Brunswick contracts until Bombardier Transportation took operations on July 1, 2013. Alstom bought Bombardier’s rail business in 2021 and won a new five-year contract in April 2023. Amtrak never left the Penn Line.

Penn Line

Seventy-seven miles, Washington Union Station to Perryville, almost all of it Amtrak’s Northeast Corridor. Most trains turn at Baltimore Penn; a few continue to Martin State Airport or Perryville. It is the only electrified MARC line, the only one with Saturday and Sunday service (from December 7, 2013), and by a wide margin the busiest of the three—on the order of twice the trains and twice the riders of Camden and Brunswick combined.

MARC extended north of Baltimore to Perryville on May 1, 1991, with Edgewood, Aberdeen, and Martin State Airport. New Carrollton replaced Capital Beltway on October 30, 1983. West Baltimore replaced Edmondson Avenue and Frederick Road on April 30, 1984. Bowie State replaced Bowie on February 27, 1989. Equipment on this line is why MARC once advertised 125 mph: AEM-7s from 1986, HHP-8s from the turn of the century, Siemens Chargers from 2018. The corridor encyclopedia is Amtrak’s. The commuter assignment is this page.

Camden Line

Thirty-nine miles, Washington to Camden Station, CSX Capital Subdivision, weekday peak service. Greenbelt opened May 3, 1993, months before Metro. Savage opened July 31, 1989; Muirkirk December 12, 1994; Dorsey replaced Elkridge in July 1996; Berwyn closed January 31, 1994. The stations moved to the parking lots. The railroad did not. This is still the B&O’s Washington branch, now a CSX freight main with a state commuter on it.

Brunswick Line

Seventy-four miles Washington–Martinsburg, plus a 14-mile Frederick branch off the Old Main Line at Frederick Junction. Weekdays only. Metropolitan Grove, July 6, 1987, was the first new Brunswick station in more than a century. West Virginia had funded Brunswick–Martinsburg shuttles in the late 1970s so the trips would qualify for federal aid; those shuttles became the west end of the MARC line.

MARC train P871 arriving at Brunswick Maryland October 21 2022

MARC train P871, out of Washington, D.C., arrives at Brunswick, Maryland, on October 21, 2022. Jon Wright photo.

Passenger trains returned to Frederick on December 17, 2001, fifty-two years after the B&O locals died: a $56 million rebuild of the industrial track, a connection at Point of Rocks, and new stations at Monocacy and downtown Frederick. The hero photograph is that branch on the Old Main Line in 2019. Brunswick itself remains the crew town and the place the west-end trains still carry the name.

Silver Spring, 1996

On February 16, 1996, at 5:39 p.m., eastbound MARC train 286—Brunswick to Washington, cab car leading in a snowstorm—struck Amtrak’s westbound Capitol Limited, train 29, at Georgetown Junction just west of Silver Spring. Eleven people on the MARC train died, including the three CSX crew members. The National Transportation Safety Board found that the MARC crew had passed an approach signal at Kensington, stopped for a flag passenger, and then failed to reduce for the stop ahead. The cab car hit Amtrak F40PH 255; the ruptured fuel tank fed the fire that killed most of the dead. NTSB/RAR-97/02 is the report. This page is the date. It is not a second accident encyclopedia.

All-time locomotive roster

MARC never owned a large fleet. What it did own, lease, or have rebuilt is small enough to list. Numbers were reused: E units 60–69 in the early 1990s, GP40WH-2s 51–69 after that; F9PHs 81–85, then Siemens Chargers 80–87. Cab control cars—including rebuilt F7s such as 7100, later at the B&O Railroad Museum—are not in the tables. Early MDOT years also used leased NJ Transit Arrows on the Penn Line and a mixed bag of rebuilt coaches; those are cars, not this roster.

MARC E8AM 60 westbound commuter at Forest Glen Maryland July 23 1992

MARC E8AM 60 (built as Illinois Central E8A 4023 in 1951) with a westbound commuter at Forest Glen, Maryland, on July 23, 1992. Wade Massie photo.

Current and recently active (as of 2026)

Builder / model	Road numbers	Qty	In service	Notes
MPI MP36PH-3C	10–35	26	2009–2011	Replaced the GP40WH-2s in revenue service
Morrison-Knudsen GP39H-2, rebuilt GP39PH-3C	70–75	6	1988; rebuilt 2023	12-cylinder, 2,300 hp, Cummins HEP. Short consists and work
Morrison-Knudsen GP40WH-2	68	1	1993–94 (class)	Last of 51–69 kept for work and rescue
EMD GP40PH-2A	4145	1	Purchased 2018	Ex-NJ Transit
Bombardier–Alstom HHP-8	4910–4913, 4915	5 in service	c. 2001–02; refurbished 2017–18	8,000 hp electrics, Penn Line. 4914 retired as parts. 125 mph
Siemens Charger SC-44	80–87	8	2017–18	Replaced the AEM-7s. Cummins QSK95, 4,400 hp. 125 mph

Former

Builder / model	Road numbers	Qty	MARC years	Notes
EMD E8AM / E9AM	60–69	10	late 1980s–mid-1990s	Ex-Burlington Northern / Metra; built as E8As (No. 60 ex-IC 4023). Some later numbered 91–92
Morrison-Knudsen F9PH	81–85	5	1980s–2000s	Rebuilt from B&O F7s; former MDOT 7181–7185
Morrison-Knudsen GP40WH-2	51–67, 69	18	1993–94 to 2009–11	Cummins HEP, Gyralites. Several to MPI for SunRail MP32PH-Q rebuilds; 69 to CSX 9969; others to lessors (MPEX / PNLX)
EMD / ASEA AEM-7	4900–4903	4	1986–87 to 2017	Penn Line electrics. Tested an Amtrak AEM-7 in October 1986. Stored after the Chargers arrived
Bombardier–Alstom HHP-8	4914	1	c. 2001–02	Parts source; class otherwise still active

The GP40WH-2s were the face of MARC diesel power for fifteen years: nineteen Morrison-Knudsen rebuilds of freight GP40s, ordered 1993, in service 1994. MPI’s MP36PH-3Cs replaced them in revenue service between 2009 and 2011. The six GP39H-2s of 1988 were the earlier, smaller MK product and are still on the property after a 2023 HEP rebuild. Electric traction on the Penn Line ran AEM-7s first (four units, 1986–87), then six HHP-8s shared with Amtrak’s own unhappy class, then eight Chargers that can run the Corridor on diesel under the wire. That hardware story, in general, is diesel locomotives and electric locomotives.

What still runs

In 2026 MARC is still three lines into Union Station. Amtrak still runs the Penn Line; Alstom still runs Camden and Brunswick on CSX. Penn is still the only weekend service. Pre-pandemic weekday ridership was on the order of 36,000 (MTA FY2019). The 2020 crash cut that sharply; recovery has been partial. Expansion talk—all-day Camden and Brunswick, Delaware on the Penn Line, run-throughs with Virginia Railway Express—lives in MTA plans, not in a second encyclopedia here.

For a ticket, a delay, or which track at Odenton, use MTA MARC. For how American commuter rail left the private companies, stay on commuter rail.

Sources

Maryland Transit Administration / former mtamaryland.com “History of MARC Train” (state subsidy 1974–75; Amtrak Penn Line 1983; MARC name from the 1983 marketing study; SRA into MTA 1992)
Northeast Rail Service Act of 1981; Conrail commuter offload January 1, 1983. Date also on the 1980s page
Matt Van Hattem, “Maryland Rail Commuter (MARC),” Trains, June 30, 2006 (updated 2020): subsidies 1975–76, 50 percent farebox 1981, bilevels 2000–01, Frederick extension December 17, 2001
Frederick News-Post, December 17, 2001; Progressive Railroading, December 14, 2001. MARC Frederick / Monocacy opening
National Transportation Safety Board, Railroad Accident Report NTSB/RAR-97/02, MARC train 286 and Amtrak train 29, Silver Spring, Maryland, February 16, 1996
Richard Adams and Ted Grumbine, Maryland Rail Commuter all-time diesel roster, TheDieselShop.us (archived 2023). MPI MP36PH-3C 10–35; GP39H-2 70–75; GP40WH-2 51–69; SC-44 80–87; AEM-7 4900–4903; HHP-8 4910–4915
EMD GP40-based passenger locomotives (GP39H-2, GP40WH-2 class history). Bombardier–Alstom HHP-8 class: MARC 4910–4915, Amtrak 15 units
MTA / APTA ridership: FY2019 weekday about 36,375; later-year recovery incomplete. Operators: Amtrak Penn Line; Bombardier Camden/Brunswick from July 1, 2013; Alstom from 2021, new contract April 2023
Live American-Rails Blue Ridge, B&O, Pennsylvania, Amtrak, CSX, and commuter pages as linked above

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