West End of Hancock/B116.9

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At Hancock, Maryland the Western Maryland had another stretch of double track used for the meeting and passing of trains. The passing siding stretched from the signals at the East End along the B114.4 to the signals at the West End of Hancok at the B116.9. When the West Sub was taken out of service to through traffic in May, 1975, the rails at Hancock remained in use up till 1987. There was a pulp wood business here that had at one time supplied the Westvaco Mill at Luke, Md. When the business was gone CSX pulled the rails up. The rails stretched from Tonoloway west of Hancock to Big Pool Jct. The line was sold and purchased by the Maryland DNR. This section of the West Sub is now part of the Western Maryland Rail Trail. View Larger Map

Up from "Lovers Leap" looking towards the West End of Hancock at WM 4-8-4- Potomac No 1403 takes a train west from Hancock on April 11, 1952. (Bill Price photo)
Two photos at the W.E. Hancock at signal 116.8. The concrete base is for former signal 116.8 seen in the foreground in the second photo. I cropped a section from the photo below to go with the newer photo I had.

View looking east towards Hancock on October 23, 1955 at the Hancock West End. (Thanks to Jim Coshun for photo)
A former source of revenue for the WM was this truck dump that can be found not far west of the Rt. 522 bridge.

Looking east from the Rt.522 bridge towards Hancock, the switches here are for the pulp wood facility. Great looking WM mainline tracks too.
In a WM photo by John C. Durant, AJ-2 is seen passing under the Rt.522 bridge as it comes into Hancock, Md on 11/16/73. The track in the bottom right went to a pulp wood loading facility. The site is now used to store new RV's. In a recent photo taken in Nov. 2002 about the same location.

This signal base and battery box is all that remains of eastbound signal 115.7 in the town of Hancock. Photos taken before and after the WMRT.

An old photo courtesy of J. W. France along the WM looking east near Pennsylavania Ave.

A CSX railtrain is stopped at the Pennsylavania Ave. crossing on Dec. 8 1988 in Hancock, Md. By the next day the rails were gone from this location. The 3-tier WM pole in distance at left, still stands today in it's entirety. (photo by Brian Paulus)

The sign was up on September 9, 2001 and construcion is underway on Phase II of the WMRT west of Hancock. In the second photo, construction has already begun and appears to be ready for pavement. This location is the Pennsylavania Ave. crossing seem in the photos avove and below.

From the cab of eastbound CSX railtrain at Pennsylavania Ave. on the WM main in Hancock taken on Dec. 7, 1988. The track curves to the right as it heads east through town. (photo by Brian Paulus)

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