From the Archive

Why the tram stopped running

The Boardwalk tram carried people from 1964 to 2024. It has not run since a fatal accident that August, and last October the council retired it for good.

By OCMD Explorer

Not independently confirmed. This item is based on reporting by WMAR-2 News and The Baltimore Sun; we have not verified it against a primary source.

People still ask at the Inlet where the tram picks up, and the honest answer takes a minute. The Boardwalk tram ran from 1964. It stopped in August 2024, when a two-year-old child was fatally injured by one of the cars. It never ran again.

The town kept the service suspended through the 2025 season while it looked at what a safe Boardwalk shuttle would have to be, and in October 2025 the council voted to discontinue the tram permanently rather than bring it back. The pedicab franchise that now covers the Boardwalk is the replacement that decision made necessary.

Boardwalk Tram Retirement (2025)The retirement is an era in this guide's timeline, not a footnote — sixty-one years of the Boardwalk moved on it.

We are not naming the child and we will not link to the photographs. What belongs on a visitors' guide is the part a visitor needs: the tram is gone, it is not seasonal and it is not coming back, and the trams you see in old postcards and on the front of half the souvenir shirts in town are history now. If you want the tram, the guide's own timeline is where it lives.

In this guide

Ocean City Boardwalk

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Sources

The council minutes have not been read. Dates and the discontinuation vote come from reporting.

We have not checked this against a primary source. If you know better — especially if you own the place we are writing about — tell us and we will correct it.

Something on this page out of date, or something changed in town that we have missed? Tell us what changed. It goes to a person, not a queue.