Hanover Subdivision

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The Hanover Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. states of Maryland and Pennsylvania. The line runs from Baltimore, Maryland west to Hagerstown, Maryland^[1] along a former Western Maryland Railway line. It meets the Baltimore Terminal Subdivision at its east end, and the Lurgan Subdivision heads both north and west from its west end.

[edit] History

The Western Maryland Railroad built from the end of the Northern Central Railway's Green Spring Branch at Owings Mills to Hagerstown, opening its line between 1862^[2] and 1872.^[3] The Hanover Subdivision southeast of Owings Mills opened in 1873, allowing the Western Maryland to stop using the Green Spring Branch.^[4]

The Western Maryland's original main line took a shorter path than the Hanover Subdivision between Emory Grove, Maryland and Highfield, Maryland. The first piece of the current route to be built was between Porters, Pennsylvania and Hanover, Pennsylvania, opened in 1852 as part of the Hanover Branch Railroad.^[5] The Gettysburg Railroad opened the piece between Hanover and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1858.^[6] In the 1870s, the line from Emory Grove north to Porters was built by the Bachman Valley Railroad and Baltimore and Hanover Railroad.^{[citation needed]} The Hanover Junction, Hanover and Gettysburg Railroad extended the line from Gettysburg west to Orrtanna, Pennsylvania in the 1870s or 1880s, and the Baltimore and Harrisburg Railway Western Extension opened the rest of line from Orrtanna west to Highfield in 1889.^{[citation needed]}

All of these lines became part of the Western Maryland and CSX through leases and mergers.