Maryland and Delaware Railroad
Historic train station in Federalsburg, Maryland, restored as headquarters of Maryland and Delaware Railroad | |
| Overview | |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | Federalsburg, Maryland |
| Reporting mark | MDDE |
| Locale | Delaware and Eastern Maryland, United States |
| Dates of operation | 1977–present |
| Technical | |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Length | 120 mi (190 km) |
| Other | |
| Website | www.mdde.com |
The Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company (reporting mark MDDE) is a Class III short-line railroad, formed in 1977 to operate several branch lines of the former Penn Central Railroad in both Maryland and Delaware, United States. These branches were omitted from the system plan for Conrail in 1976 and would have been discontinued without state subsidies. As an alternative to the higher cost of subsidizing Conrail as the operator of the branch lines, the Maryland and Delaware governments selected the Maryland and Delaware Railroad Company (MDDE) to serve as the designated operator.
The railroad did not own any of the track it uses until 2000 when it acquired a line between Frankford, Delaware and Snow Hill, Maryland from the Snow Hill Shippers Association. Today, the railroad operates on 92 miles of track and runs out of a restored station in Federalsburg, Maryland.
This railroad is not affiliated with the similarly named 19th Century Maryland and Delaware Rail Road Company, though it did for a time run on the corridor that the earlier railroad built.