The Ma & Pa Comes to Harford – Guest Speaker Walter Holloway
February 8, 2025 @ 2:00 pm
$15
The MA & PA Railroad stretched between Baltimore at North Avenue & Howard Streets, onto Towson, through Long Green Valley into Harford County. It ended at Market Street in York, Pennsylvania. Even by the day’s standards, it passed through some of the East Coast’s most wooded, curvaceous, and beautiful scenery.
The MA & PA Railroad was an important part of life in Harford County, especially for the towns between Baltimore and York. The early morning run from Harford County to Baltimore City carried so much milk that locals called it “The Milky Way.” For the owners of the County’s many canneries, quarries, and mines, the railroad was an essential part of their livelihood. The trains chugged through 23 miles in Harford County at an average speed of only 15 – 20 miles per hour because of the route’s many grade changes and curves. At the turn of the twentieth century, the railroad trip from Baltimore City to Sharon (north of Forest Hill) took about 1 ¾ hours.
In addition to mail and all kinds of Harford County products, the MA & PA also carried people—travelers, shoppers, theatergoers, and relatives. They welcomed the screeching whistles and billowing steam clouds of the MA & PA Railroad as a way to see what lay beyond their hometowns. Like other railroads of the time, the MA & PA began a slow decline as buses, trucks, and Model Ts began to carry people and products between Baltimore and Bel Air on Rt. 1.
Join Ma & Pa expert Walt Holloway as he shares his photographs and stories of the heyday of the Ma & Pa. The fee is $15.
