Annapolis at one time hosted three railroad lines. A branch of the Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis (WB&A), formerly the Annapolis and Elkridge Railroad (A&ER), ran northwest to Annapolis Junction. The Baltimore & Annapolis Railroad (B&A), formerly the Annapolis and Baltimore (A&B) Short Line, ran north, roughly parallel to MD 648, and connected to a branch of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad (B&O), just south of Baltimore, so that trains could travel to Baltimore. The Bay Ridge and Annapolis Railroad (BR&A) ran southeast from Annapolis to the Bay Ridge Resort, at the mouth of the Severn River.
Today, decades after their demise, fragments of these railroads can still be spotted if you know where to look. The construction of these railroads reshaped topography, established the alignments of future roadways and utilities, sliced through land parcels and even established towns and places such as Annapolis Junction and Ft. Meade. Most of the tracks have since been removed and many sections of the railroad Right-of-Ways (ROW) have been repurposed for a variety of uses, but their one-time dominance still has an influence on the logistics of our daily lives.
Annapolis is the only state capital east of the Mississippi that is not connected by rail service.
The BR&A Railroad
“The Bay Ridge and Annapolis Railroad was incorporated by the Bay Ridge Company in March 1886. The Bay Ridge Company rebuilt the beach resort on the Chesapeake Bay in 1885. The hotel was doubled in size, the boardwalk expanded, and beach cottages were constructed. The company even opened a zoological exhibit with lions, tigers and bears... ...The railroad was never profitable and in 1904 it ceased operations. In 1918, with steel at a premium due to World War I, the tracks were removed.”
“Bay Ridge was developed in 1879 as a grand Victorian summer resort with a large frame hotel on the bluff near Tolly Point. At first the thousands of daily visitors came by steamboat from Baltimore and Annapolis, but in 1886 the Bay Ridge and Annapolis Railroad offered another route to the popular resort and made it accessible to vacationers from Washington and points west. For the next seventeen summers, hundreds of thousands of people enjoyed the “Queen Resort of the Chesapeake.” Among the attractions were all-day band concerts, dining and dancing pavilions, games and amusements, the gravity road, picnic grounds, and a two-mile electric trolley ride that wound along the river and lake shores. Special events, such as the spectacular Fourth of July fireworks, attracted crowds of happy day-trippers. The resort closed in 1903...”
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_Ridge_and_Annapolis_Railroad
http://bay-ridge.org/our-community/history-of-bay-ridge/
Relic Series: BR&A - Bay Ridge Rd
Looking northwest from GZ you can see the old railroad bed that runs along the back side of the fenced yard. The railroad alignment continues southeast from here and overlaps Bay Ridge Rd. to the next curve, where it continues straight into Bay Ridge Forest.
Congrats to unusualsuspect on FTF