I was surprised a couple of weeks ago passing by Gaithersburg MD and noticing that one of the siding tracks that had been used to support peices of the town's railroad collection had been torn up.

I went back a few days later to find that they had gone through the trouble of splicing in a new peice of rail where the frog had been, ironic to me seeing how the whole deal is severed from the CSX main to begin with, the point is somewhat moot.

I was even more stunned when I visited today to find the former Pullman troop kitchen car that had sat there for 20 years was gone. Where'd it go?

And why they traded a B&O caboose for a former C&O caboose I'll never understand either...

Does anybody have info on what's going on in Gaithersburg? Thanks.-Jeffrey

The Western Maryland Troop Kitchen Car is in Hagerstown at the Hagerstown Roundhouse Museum along with the track it sat on. In return, Gaithersburg is getting one of the B&O Bud Cars to turn into a "theater" car. Not sure what that means but I guess we'll see. The Kitchen Car should be getting a cosmetic restoration in the near future. Unfortunately a lot of the brake rigging was torched off for the move... not that the car is ever going to be running the high iron again with its Allied Full Cushion trucks. Still, the car is in excellent shape for its age and will look really nice when cosmetically restored. The interior is pretty much gutted, but I'd really like to see it returned to it's as-built configuration for display.

-Alex Haines

I was on the "study committee" over four years ago when the City of Gaithersburg made the decision to re-align its roster of equipment. The B&O wagon top and kitchen car required more cubic dollars for restoration or adaptive re-use than the City was willing to spend to get them up to shape. The troop car and caboose were de-accessioned at that time as part of the study and trades were made as discussed in the earlier post. The sentiment was that the RDC was relative to the history of commuter service on the Metropolitan Branch. We also briefly considered B&O 3300 (3301?), the observation car trackside on the old B&O in Pennsylania. There is also funding for cosmetic restoration of BC&G 14.

Wesley

Actually BC&G 14. #13 belongs to JJJ.

Thank you for the reply Wesley.

I am still alittle curious as to why one of the sidings was torn up, as if they plan on using the small parcel of land for something else. Wish I had gotten a peice of the old rail... :(