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For 63 years, trains of the Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad (B&A) and its predecessors were Baltimore’s primary link with Maryland’s state capital. Rails first reached Annapolis in 1840, when the Annapolis & Elk Ridge Railroad opened its route west from the city to a junction with the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) at Annapolis Junction, midway between Baltimore and Washington. But Baltimoreans found this roundabout 38-mile route, with its change of trains at Annapolis Junction, less than ideal.

So in 1880, a group of New England promoters organized the Annapolis & Baltimore Short Line to build a direct 26-mile line southeast from Baltimore, roughly following the old Annapolis Road. The project proceeded at a leisurely pace, with new “Short Line” trains eventually starting at the B&O’s Camden Station in Baltimore and heading in almost a straight line through sparsely populated farmland to the Severn, where a long timber trestle took them across the wide Severn River estuary to Annapolis. In early March 1887, the first train entered the new Short Line’s Bladen St. station in Annapolis.

Business was slim in the early years, and in 1893 the railroad was sold to George Burnham Jr. and reorganized as the Baltimore & Annapolis Short Line the next year. Universally it was called simply “The Annapolis Short Line.” Its lethargy ended in 1908 when new owners completed a full electrification of the line, providing clean, comfortable, faster, and more frequent service. That in turn triggered the growth of suburban northern Anne Arundel County. Developments such as Linthicum, Ferndale (originally Wellham), Glen Burnie, Pasadena, and Severna Park, sprouted in the fields and woods along the Short Line.

Concurrent with the Short Line’s transformation, the new Washington, Baltimore & Annapolis (WB&A) opened its high-speed electric interurban line between Baltimore and Washington, closely paralleling the Short Line at its north end. In 1921, the WB&A bought the Short Line, combined their tracks north of Linthicum, and moved Short Line trains from Camden Station to the WB&A’s commodious new Baltimore terminal at Howard and Lombard streets.

Beset by automobiles and railroad competition, and weakened by the Depression, the luckless WB&A gave up in 1935 and abandoned its system. But bondholders of the old Annapolis Short Line believed that section was still viable, so they reclaimed their property and reorganized it as the Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad. Backed by the Baltimore & Ohio, the new B&A was partly upgraded and returned to the B&O’s Camden Station. The company also entered the motor bus business, later serving Fort Meade from both Baltimore and Annapolis, plus other points not reached by its rails.

Business surged during World War II, but left the railroad worn out. Following the war’s end, the B&A expanded its bus operations and on February 5, 1950, buses replaced all rail passenger service. The electric wires came down, but the railroad remained intact for diesel-operated freight service. But that business, too, shrank during the 1960s. Service into Annapolis ended in 1968, and by the early 1970s all that remained was a six-mile stub to Glen Burnie.

The Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad’s bus system was absorbed by Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) in 1973. Thus shrunken, B&A’s rail operation survived into the late 1980s, when the state bought its right-of-way to use as part of its new light rail system. By June 1993, light rail cars were running between Baltimore and Cromwell station in Glen Burnie, and the line’s electric interurban heritage had returned. South of Glen Burnie, most of the right-of-way has become the Baltimore & Annapolis Trail, a popular hiking and biking pathway.

—Herbert H. Harwood, Jr.

CSX Transportation (Retired)