A little bonus was adding eight more railroad stations to my "collection" along the way, several on the little-known Stewartstown Railroad. Now a tourist railroad, the company was once a freight shortline that connected with the North Central Railway at New Freedom, PA, which was to be the eventual parking location for my ride.
Four of the stations were still standing along this Maryland section of the NCR, although one at Freeland (photo below) was moved a half mile east (and up a short, nasty hill!) for restoration and use on a farm, and one was at the end of the line, along the abandoned/redeveloped right-of-way in the heart of Cockeysville, MD. I enjoyed seeing town names that became very familiar to me while driving down the Interstate 83 corridor towards Baltimore, on my way back and forth to the University of Maryland. Although, at 34 miles, the two towns were probably a little far apart to be rivals, we imagined Cockeysville and Scaggsville meeting regularly, with the one school waving their index fingers overconfidently and the other knowing they were inferior and expecting defeat.
The Torry C. Brown Rail Trail runs nearly twenty miles from the state border into Baltimore County through Gunpowder Falls State Park. The route crosses back and forth across the Big Gunpowder Falls River and its many tributaries (Beetree Run, Little Falls, Fourth Mine Branch) innumerable times, as railroad engineers (the route designers, not the locomotive-operating type) strove to reduce curves and cut the straightest possible course along low-lying, meandering waterways. I lost count of the mostly concrete bridges and culverts, and the majority were completely covered by vegetation, making them only discernable by the iron railings or by hearing water rush beneath.
I started my ride around noon, with a bit of an early autumn chill still in the air, and I didn't expect it to get much warmer along the trail which was mostly under a thick canopy of trees. Leaves were just beginning to fall, and I ended up wishing there were a lot more on the pathway, as it was very rough, compared to the nicely-groomed, finely-crushed gravel of the Heritage Rail Trail. I found it very appropriate that I had just watched the Paris-Tours race that weekend, as its route traverses ten sectors of chemins des vignes, gravely tracks that traverse the vineyards of the Loire Valley.
The surface was mostly parallel tracks of hard mud, which would would have been fine, but a coarse layer of limestone gravel was imbedded in it, causing mile after mile of pounding vibration through my arms and shoulders. In areas where the surface was looser, it felt like riding over broken concrete! I didn't think it could get worse until I reached a section just north of Monkton, MD, where the trail climbed up above the river into a rock cut. The gravel and dirt was scrubbed clear in patches, and I was riding over bedrock slab! When I was later finishing up the 45-mile out and back route, I honestly felt FAR more fatigued in my upper body than my legs.
Despite the fact that there was no remaining rail on this portion of the NCR, caretakers of the trail made it clear that this was Pennsylvania Railroad territory, as the wonderfully-restored Monkton Station (photo below) and road crossings (most of which at one time had stations onsite) were all marked with signs in the red and gold company colors and/or keystone motif.
Besides the station and rural crossings, plus the occasional passerby, there wasn't a whole lot to see except trees and streams. The forest was pretty thick along the whole length of the trail, so there weren't even any scenic vistas to speak about. The peace and quiet was great, but I'd suggest taking along a friend to help pass the time!
The trail descended 600 feet towards Cockeysville, so the southern direction was far easier, but the ride back wasn't really difficult - as I always say after riding these types of trails, it's a railroad grade, so it can't be too steep or the trains' steel wheels would slip on the steel rails.
I found that my bike and I were incredibly clean after the ride, especially compared to the coating of light gray dust that covered us after riding the Heritage Rail Trail. I suppose that was the unexpected advantage of riding the punishing, hard-packed gravel surface of the Torrey C. Brown!
My meet-up in York was to exchange the frameset of my Colnago Extreme Power bicycle for a super-slick Tommasini Sintesi from the early 2000s. I had the Colnago listed for over a year with relatively little interest, so I jumped at the chance to move onto some other project. This is a modern steel frame with a threadless headset, so I am thinking of just swapping in the parts from the Colnago build.
Here is a shot of the bike as its previous owner had it set up:
As always, more to come...
