In the late summer of 2003 I was preparing for a move down to Maryland for grad school and on one of the trips I convinced my ride to pull by the MARC station at Perryville, which at the time was something I knew from photos and a couple trips past on Northeasts Direct. I didn't take a lot of photos ( mirror ), but in the interest of completeness I might as well cover it.
The Perryville MARC station is located just north of Amtrak's Susquehanna River Bridge. Built in 1905, the station is still signed for the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad, despite the PW&B having been fully absorbed into the PRR in 1902.
The station had already been closed as of Amtrak's founding in 1971, but was re-opened between 1978 and 1983 to support the Chesapeake commuter service.
Regular MARC service was ultimately extended to Perryville in 1991 with
the station building receiving a full restoration at that point.
By 2003 MARC trains were only normally stopping on the track closest the station building, however the old nothbound platform was still visible.
Perryville's claim to fame is being located at the wye junction with the PRR Port Road Branch to Enola yard. These PRR pedestal type signals were replaced in the 2010's by colorized position light masts.
PERRY tower is still standing next to the relay house for the current PERRY interlocking. This tower had CTC control of GRACE interlocking across the river and the Port Road Branch up to MIDWAY.
While there was no MARC service on weekend, a family group had shown up to watch Amtrak NEC trains passing by at 90mph.
While I was there I caught a southbound Amtrak Regional train with AEM-7 #949 in a Phase III Heritage scheme.
I also caught AEM-7 #907 passing PERRY tower northbound.
Like I said this was a rather small set of photos, but its still interesting to see all the stuff that's not there any more like the old northbound platform, thick trackside vegetation and the pedestal signals. In the future Perryville will see even more changes as the 1906 Susquehanna River bridge is replaced.
