25-07-15 PHOTOS: Jessup Pickup

MARC's Jessup Station is infamous for its low ridership with, on average, 1 rider per day. Located on the Camden Line, the station was never upgraded with additional parking like the neighboring Savage and Dorsey stations, and generally lakcs connectivity to the surrounding area, including a large prison complex. Ridership is also hindered by the service level of a single round trip in the DC direction per weekday. In the summer of 2025 a service disruption resulted in my friend catching MARC Train 854 which made the Jessup stop, instead of the usual Train 856 that I would meet at Dorsey. Due to the sufficient warning I was able to adjust my pickup and give my friend the opportunity to use Jessup for a bona fide transit purpose. Combined with some additional NEC photos I had enough to fill a photo set.

The MARC Jessup station is directly adjacent to JESSUP interlocking on the CSX Capitol Sub, which itself is at the north end of the giant Jessup Auto Terminal, which handles new vehicle deliveries for the entire region. CSX has invested in capacity improvements on the south end of the yard to keep autorack trains from fouling the main tracks as they are received or assembled for departure. Unfortunately it appears that the north end still sees these sorts of movements spilling into or past JESSUP interlocking. Here ES44AC #3153 pulls a cut of racks out of the yard tracks and onto the main line. 

The CSX movement was successful in clearing the main just as my friend on Train 854 pulled into Jessup. He was not alone in getting off as the singular regular rider was also commuting that day. MARC Train 854 had MP36PH-3C #15 leading and cab car #8049 on the rear end

The next train through was my friend's usual Train #856 which of course skips Jessup en route to Dorsey. #856 had MARC MP36PH-3C #24 leading.

For a station that gets only sees one round trip of service per day the infrastructure could be a lot worse. The duckboard track crossing even appeared to have been recently replaced.

As soon as the CSX #3152 cleared up, a signal was displayed for MARC Train #859, which proceeded to ran through Jessup at the track speed of 70mph. Cab car #8048 leading and MP36PH-3C #27 was on the rear. 

At that point it was time to leave Jessup Station to get to our pub trivia event, however later in the month I found myself trackside on the NEC south of Newark, Delaware. Of the two trains that passed by the first was a northbound Regional with ACS-86 #612.

This was followed up by a fly by of a great blue heron. 

I eventually managed to catch a northbound Acela with classic power cars #2026 and #2029 passing under the Mileport 43 intermediate signals. 

That's all for today. Check back next week as I spend a gorgeous summer day in New York City.