21-04-17 PHOTOS: Seabrook

In the past year or two as Covid has curtailed some of the opportunities I had for travel and urban transit, I had to look closer to home to find interesting railroad content. One of the low hanging fruit has been MARC commuter rail stations in my area, specifically those on the Penn Line (Amtrak NEC) that has both all day and weekend service compared with the Camden Line (B&O) that does not. Today's station is the first one located outside the Capitol Beltway in Seabrook, Maryland. You can find the full set of photos here ( mirror ).


Located fairly close to the New Carrollton DC Metro terminal, Seabrook is skipped by many weekday trains and has no weekend service in order to save a few minutes for other Penn Line travelers.

Seabrook was the location of one of the last 4 grade crossings on the PRR portion of the NEC. Eliminated as part of the NEC Improvement Project of the 1980's, remains of the Seabrook Road crossing are still evident including one of the masts for the crossing flashers.

The station is also situated about a quarter mile south of the milepost 124 intermediate signal location and dragging equipment detector. Both of these were installed as part of the NECIP, however the old PRR era signal bridge can be seen spanning the station platforms.

The first pair of trains to show up was a northbound Amtrak Regional hauled by ACS-86 #610 and a southbound weekend MARC local pushed by M36PH-3C #13. I managed to capture the meet in the video below.



Unlike more contemporary stations, MARC was not afraid to use ramps and an underpass for accessibility. This saves on the cost and visual footprint of overhead walkways with elevators.

The tunnel is well lit and provides means for human-centric transportation to cross the tracks after the closure of the grade crossing.

The next train to show up was a southbound Regional with Amtrak ACS-86 #610.

Followed by the same MARC trainset as before, returning north to Baltimore Penn Station with MP36PH-3C #13 and bi-level cab car #7846.

I was treated to one final northbound Regional, this time hauled by ACS-86 #651, seen here at the site of the old grade crossing.

If anyone is interested in Fox News, 2 of the 3 2021 kits were piebald, which means their legs were covered by patches of white fur.

Mamafox was looking as healthy as ever, always finding time to provide her kits with a light snack.

Well, that's all I have for today. Next time I'll return to the Philadelphia Main Line for photos around the towns of Saint Davids and Wayne.