Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road

Baltimore City is home to the internationally renowned Baltimore & Ohio Museum and establishment of the first passenger railroad in America. The line opened for travel from Baltimore to Ellicott’s Mills in May of 1830 and led to the development of the area that would become Ellicott City.

Just thirteen miles by track to Baltimore, along the Patapsco River, sits the Ellicott City train station, which has survived longer than any other railroad station or terminal in the United States. Opened sometime in the spring of 1831, the building represented the first major stop on the Old Main Line on its eventual way to Wheeling, Virginia, on the Ohio River. In 1835 the B&O opened first lateral line of the rail road connecting Baltimore to Washington, DC and then in 1887 built the spur into Savage that was known as the Patuxent Branch.