Queen Anne's Railroad
[2] The following towns were served by the Queen Anne's Railroad: An article appearing in the April 9, 1897 issue of The Morning News announcing the opening of the new railway lists the stations, in order, as Queenstown, Bloomingdale, Wye Mills, Willoughby, Queen Anne, Hillsboro, Downes, Tuckahoe, Denton, Hobbs, Hickman, Adamsville, Blanchard, and Greenwood where the line terminated while construction continued to Ellendale.
[3] The Queen Anne's Railroad company was incorporated by a group of Centreville businessmen in Maryland on February 26, 1894, to provide transportation between Baltimore and Cape May, NJ.
[1] It received legislative authorization from Delaware to build its line to Lewes, DE in February 1895 despite opposition from the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) which had its own Cape May service.
[5][6][7] On March 1, 1898, service was extended to Lewes, DE where it connected to a terminal that allowed passengers to catch a ferry to Cape May.
"[8] This welcome center included 100 bathhouses, a 40 foot by 40 foot dance floor, bowling alley, shuffleboard, electric lights, and accommodations for 1,000 excursionists and was located one block from the Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia railroad station in Rehoboth Beach that was utilized by the Queen Anne railroad after the rail lines linked in Lewes.
[9] The Queen Anne Railroad planned to construct their own rail line from Lewes to Rehoboth Beach that would have followed the beach, giving a view of the ocean and passing just beside the Great Dune at the Cape Henlopen Light, at the present day Cape Henlopen State Park,; but the line was never built.
[10] In 1901–02, the rail line was extended 13-mile (21 km) west to Love Point, Maryland and north from Queenstown to Centreville.
[6][11][4][1] Two days later it was placed under the control of the Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway (BC&A) and the two were operated as twins.
[1] In 1924 Leaf sold the western portion, from Love Point to West Denton, MD, to the Baltimore and Eastern Railroad (B&ER) a subsidiary of the BC&A.
It sold the eastern portion, from West Denton to Lewes, to the Maryland and Delaware Coast Railroad at the same time.
[15] The opening of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in 1952 dealt the B&ER a further blow as more travelers chose to drive.
[1] In 1977, the Maryland and Delaware Railroad (MDDE) was formed to operate rural lines that were omitted from Conrail's system plan and it began to operate trains between Queen Anne, where it connected to the Oxford Branch and Denton, hauling freight and running occasional excursions.
The Denton and Oxford Branches operated at a loss for years, with declining use and in 1982 it was estimated that they needed $1 million in repairs.
[16][19][20][21] They signed an agreement with MTA to do so in 1993, received permission from the ICC the next year and started running both freight and excursion trains in 1995.
[24] In 1998 the state terminated the CHRR's operating agreement and a few days later a final run was made to clear equipment from the track.
[25] In 1931 their "gasoline car" was destroyed and they ended passenger rail; freight service continued, but they went bankrupt and were foreclosed on in 1932.
After Draper went out of business in 1999,[28] Norfolk Southern leased the line to store grain cars on it for Purdue and operations returned to DCLR.
In early 2018, DelDOT decided not to renew its contract with DCLR and the Delmarva Central Railroad won the bid to take it over effective January 1, 2019.
