Address: 901 West Pratt Street
Pricing: $14 adults, $12 seniors, $8 kids 2-12
Phone: 410-752-2490
Hours: Mon-Sat 10am-4pm, Sun 11am-4pm
How To Get There:
I-95 North to Exit 53 to I-395 North. Follow signs to Martin Luther King, Jr. Boulevard. Once on Martin Luther King, Jr. Blvd, make left onto Lombard Street. Continue for three blocks and make a left turn onto Poppleton Street/Railroad Way and proceed south. The Museum?s entrance gate will be at the traffic light intersection of Poppleton Street and Pratt Street.
Parking:street
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Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum: All aboard!
Jul 26, 2010
As the country's biggest port, once upon a time, it only made sense that Baltimore would then develop the first major commercial railtrack in 1829. All this history is carefully preserved at the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum in West Baltimore. Once the campus for surveyors, engineers, and businessmen to build America's railways is now a museum of history for many of the country's railroad artifacts. It is an extremely popular place for visitors to browse around old locomotives and rolling stock.
In the museum's roundhouse, several locomotives and trains are on display for people to explore and even touch. The collection of trains include more than just B&O but also the Chesapeake & Ohio, Western Maryland, and other mid-Atlantic railroads.
The trains continue to the outside of the building on the 40-acre campus as well. There are pieces of infrastructure, such as bridges and earthworks; there's also a ghostly vision of the past through furniture, fine art, time pieces, silver and uniforms. For kids (and collecting enthusiasts), there's an extensive collection of model trains on display as well.
While the actual museum opened in 1953, the B&O displayed its collections for its entire existence at various fairs and expositions, including the1904 World's Fair in St. Louis. Publicists for B&O held onto its retired locomotives and items for marketing purposes, displaying them as “America's Railroad” and the chosen way to travel the scenic countryside.
In 1927, to celebrate the railroad's centennial, B&O restored all its historic trains and invited other companies from around the world to contribute historic pieces and artifacts. This became the foundation for the B&O museum.
HelloWashingtonDC Tip: Today, the museum is a non-profit organization, affiliated with the Smithsonian, and recently expanded and restored after a massive snowfall caused the roof to collapse. The museum hosts tours and lectures, as well as visits to the first passenger rail station. Events are often held at the museum as well and various rooms, including the roundhouse with the locomotives, are available for event rental.
- by Rin-rin Yu, Washington Reporter for HelloMetro
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Rin-rin YuRin-rin is an award-winning writer and journalist based in the Baltimore-Washington area. Her work has appeared in China Daily, DAYSPA magazine, Luxury Home Design, Aquatics International, Not For Tourists and other publications. Rin-rin has also worked for ABC News, WHDH-TV (NBC) in Boston and Hanley Wood Business Media. She has a master's degree from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She is an avid world traveler and maintains a travel blog, www.mytravelhats.com.
