Western Maryland Rail Trail

The West Subdivision of the WM was abandoned in 1975 and its rails removed between Big Pool and Tonoloway in December 1988.

[1] In August 1990, the Maryland Department of Natural Resources purchased the right-of-way between a point 1⁄2 mile (0.80 km) west of Fort Frederick State Park and Little Orleans from CSX Transportation, the successor of the WM.

Construction on the next section, a 10.3 mi (16.6 km) extension from Hancock to Pollypon (a small body of water where canal boats would winter), began in 2001; it opened on June 10, 2002.

The NPS chose to do neither and instead proposed extending the trail 7.2 mi (11.6 km) from Pearre Station to the eastern portal of Stickpile Tunnel where it would terminate, as well as adding a 0.9 mi (1.4 km) section from the WM bridge over the C&O Canal near Paw Paw to the Fifth Potomac Crossing bridge on the north side of Bevan Bend.

[13] By 2016, West Virginia had dropped out of the plan, so the proposed Little Orleans–Stickpile Tunnel and Paw Paw–Fifth Potomac Crossing bridge sections were scuttled.