Delaware and Chesapeake Railroad
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 An early 1890s map of the Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore Railroad showing the Delaware and Chesapeake Railroad line | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Stations called at | Clayton, Kenton, Hartly, Slaughter, Marydel, Henderson, Goldsboro, Greensboro, Ridgely, Hillsboro, Queen Anne, Cordova, Chapel, Easton, Llandaff, Trappe, Oxford |
| Headquarters | Easton, Maryland |
| Locale | Talbot County, Maryland,Caroline County, Maryland,Kent County, Delaware |
| Dates of operation | 1878–1912 |
| Predecessor | Maryland and Delaware Rail Road Company |
| Successor | |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Length | 53.75 miles (86.50 kilometres) |
The Delaware and Chesapeake Railroad (DCRR) (Sometimes "Railway") was a railroad that ran between Clayton, Delaware and Oxford, Maryland in the late 19th Century and early 20th Century. It was chartered in 1869 to build a new train line across Delaware but used in 1878 as a way to organize a successor to the Maryland and Delaware Rail Road Company (M&D) which had been foreclosed on in late 1877.
The line, sometimes called the Oxford Brach, continued to operate, at least in part, under an assortment of owners and operators until 1996 when the last train ran. The state of Maryland, which purchased it in 1977, abandoned it in 2006 and railbanked it. Since then, localities have built several small trails on it and more have been proposed.
The D&CR was chartered by the state of Delaware in 1869 to build a railroad from Port Penn, Delaware on the Delaware River to the Maryland state line near Warwick, Maryland, passing through Odessa and Middletown and crossing the Delaware Railroad (DRC) where necessary, but the bondholders never built any rail along that route.[1] Instead the charter and name were used to reorganize the M&D railroad in 1878.
Between 1854 and 1871, the M&D built a line from Clayton, where it connected to the Delaware Railroad (DRC), to Oxford, Maryland. The Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (PW&B) operated the line. The M&D struggled to pay its debts and in 1877, bondholders foreclosed on the M&D. It was sold in two lots on December 20 of that year and reorganized as the D&CR on July 31, 1878.[2][3]
In 1881, the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR), which was at the time the nation's largest railroad, purchased the PW&B and in 1882 the PW&B purchased the DCR.[2] The following year the two were consolidated by law.[4]
In 1890, the Baltimore & Eastern Shore Railroad built a line that crossed and connected with the D&CR at Easton, MD. In 1896, the Queen Anne's Railroad crossed and connected to the line at Queen Anne, MD.
On January 23, 1899, D&CR was one of several Eastern Shore railroads that were merged into the DRC under agreement of December 31, 1898. It remained a separate entity with its own office in Easton, MD.[5]
In 1902, the PW&B merged with the Baltimore and Potomac to form the Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington Railroad (PB&W) and leased the DRC's trackage as part of the PB&W's Delaware Division. The lease was extended for 99 years in 1910.[6] The following year, the DRC paid off all bonds of the D&CR and the railroad ceased to exist as a separate entity.[7]
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