Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Railroad
railroad · active 1898-
Also known as D., M. & V. Railroad
A railroad operating between Georgetown, Delaware, and Ocean City, Maryland, in 1898 — the second line to reach the beach after the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic's route from Claiborne. It is named in the Wilmington Evening Journal of 24 August 1898, reporting that Edward Persons, 'a brakeman on the D., M. & V. railroad between Georgetown and Ocean City, Md., was hurt at the latter place on Saturday night by falling off a boat.' The Philadelphia, Wilmington & Baltimore ran its Thursday excursions to Ocean City over this route, via Frankford, Selbyville, Showell and Bishop.
In the record (6)
1894 · 1894-08-23
Sixty-five cents from Snow Hill, fifty from Wesley, seventy-five from Girdletree: the Pennsylvania Railroad's 1894 excursion fare table to Ocean City.
"EXCURSION TO OCEAN CITY From Franklin, Stockton, Girdletree, Snow Hill and other Stations. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company will run a select excursion from Franklin City, Stockton, Girdletree, Snow Hill and all other stations along the line of the D. M. & V. on Thursday morning next." The printed table: Franklin City, leaving 8.45 a.m.; Hursely, Md., 8.55; Girdletree, 9.04, 75 cents; Snow Hill, 9.19, 65 cents; Wesley, 9.27, 50 cents; Queponco, 9.37, 50 cents. "Returning, Special Train will leave Ocean City at 5.00 P. M., making the same stops. Children between 5 and 12 years of age half rates... Excursion Tickets good only on Special Train in each direction." Set against 1892, when the P.W.&B. charged 60 cents from Snow Hill, 75 from Girdletree and 50 from Wesley for the same run, the 1894 fares are the same to a nickel — except Snow Hill, up five cents.
Two years of the worst depression since the Civil War and the fare from the county seat to the beach moved by five cents. Whatever the Panic did to Ocean City, it did not do it through the price of getting there.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1898 · 1898-08-15
A Pennsylvania Railroad officer arrives at Ocean City by special Pullman, and the town reads it as a survey for a branch line from Berlin.
The Wilmington Evening Journal of 16 August 1898, datelined Ocean City, Md., August 16: 'George W. Boyd, of Philadelphia, president of the Pennsylvania railroad, accompanied by Herbert Hall, Mrs. F. W. Hall, Miss Davis, Miss Noyes and Miss Elizabeth Noyes, of Washington, arrived on a special Pullman car last evening at 10.10. The party registered at the Atlantic Hotel and will spend a few days at Ocean City. It is thought that Mr. Boyd's trip has relation to the proposed branch line extending the Pennsylvania railroad from Berlin to Ocean City.' (Boyd was the Pennsylvania's assistant general passenger agent, not its president — the correspondent overpromoted him.) The town was served that year by the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway from Claiborne and by the Delaware, Maryland & Virginia line from Georgetown, Del.; the Pennsylvania system reached only as far as Berlin. The B.C.&A. summer timetable ran two boats a day from Pier 11, Light Street, Baltimore — 7 a.m. and 4.10 p.m., leaving Ocean City at 7.20 a.m. and 4.45 p.m. — and collapsed after the season to a single 4.10 p.m. departure, with the one return train leaving Ocean City at 6.40 a.m. and reaching Baltimore at 1.10 p.m.
Two railroads already ended at this beach and a third was measuring it. The proposed Pennsylvania branch from Berlin is one more of the island's unbuilt schemes — but it explains why the B.C.&A. had spent 1896 trying to buy the town outright.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1902 · 1902-08-31
The B.C.&A. ran a Fourth of July special at Thursday excursion rates, a moonlight train home at 10 p.m. — and pulled four Ocean City trains off the timetable the day the season ended.
"The Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway Company will place on sale July 4th, SPECIAL excursion tickets at THURSDAY rates to Ocean City, Md., from all stations on the Railway Division ... or on special train leaving Ocean City at 10.30 p. m." A connecting special brought Franklin City passengers up the D. M. & V. to Berlin and into Ocean City by 7.15 a.m. and home by 8.58 p.m. A moonlight excursion ran on 22 August, leaving Ocean City at 10 p.m.; the Snow Hill Fire Department took its own excursion on 7 August. The county paper complained that through service still ran only on Thursdays: "Going to Ocean City on any other day than Thursday our people will have one and a half hours to wait in Berlin. What this is for, when a difference of a half hour in the time of the train going to Ocean City would give us through service, we cannot imagine." And then, over the superintendent's name: "IMPORTANT NOTICE. Trains Nos. 4 and 5 between Salisbury and Ocean City; also Trains Nos. 18 and 19 between Berlin and Ocean City, will be withdrawn after August 31st, 1902. A. J. Benjamin, Superintendent." Train No. 21 between Berlin and Ocean City went on 14 September. The winter timetable left two trains a day each way.
Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayPennsylvania Railroad Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1903 · 1903-08-20
Farmers' Day, 20 August 1903: forty-three carloads of excursionists on three railroads, 4,300 ticketed passengers, six to seven thousand people, and "the beach and board walk were fairly jammed."
From the Messenger of 29 August 1903, under "Big Day At Ocean City": "The crowd at Ocean City Thursday of last week was a record-breaker. The police officers said they had never seen so many people at the resort on one day as were there Thursday. Seventeen car loads of excursionists arrived from points on the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway, 14 car loads from points on the Delaware Railroad, and 12 car loads from the Delaware, Maryland & Virginia Railroad. On these three trains were 4,300 excursionists. In addition to all this crowd Thursday was 'Farmers' Day' at Ocean City, and for miles and miles around the farmers [came in]... big baskets filled with good things were opened and the lunch partaken of. For several hours the beach and board walk were fairly jammed with people, and the bath houses, hotels, restaurants and saloons did a big business. It is estimated that the crowd at Ocean City Thursday numbered between six and seven thousand." A town of a few hundred winter residents, 365 at the 1900 census [fact:1901-census-population], took twenty times its own population in a day — and the board walk is named, in passing, as one of the two places the crowd stood.
Ocean City's first documented record crowd, and the sentence that proves it had somewhere to stand.
Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayPennsylvania Railroad Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1905
Ordinary excursion days at Ocean City in the summer of 1905 brought between 5,000 and 6,000 people — "with no special attraction."
Stated in the Messenger of 30 September while arguing the case for a national oarsmen's regatta on Sinepuxent Bay: "By a careful estimate it is calculated that at least 15,000 excursionists would be taken to Ocean City on account of the annual regatta alone, not considering the progress of the camp. Upon ordinary excursion days this summer there have been between 5,000 and 6,000, and with no special attraction." Against a 1900 federal census population of 365, this is the clearest measure yet of the gap between the town's residents and its visitors. The B.C.&A. ran cheap Thursday excursions all season from 6 July, plus a moonlight excursion on 18 July and the last one on 30 August; the Maryland, Delaware and Virginia Railway ran specials from all points on its railway division.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic Railway
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1923
The BC&A absorbs what is left of the Maryland, Delaware & Virginia, sells a steamboat for scrap, cuts three river lines, and ends the year contracting with a trucking company.
Christopher T. Baer's chronology of the Pennsylvania Railroad, compiled at the Hagley Museum from the PRR's own annual reports and minute books, records 1923 as the year the Delmarva rail system was liquidated and re-founded around Ocean City's own carrier. 7 May: the Maryland, Delaware & Virginia Railway is sold at foreclosure at Love Point, the railroad and the Love Point steamer Lancaster going to E. B. Leaf Company, a scrap dealer. 13 June: the Baltimore & Eastern Railroad is incorporated as a PRR subsidiary to operate the viable portions of the MD&V, Love Point to West Denton. 24 June: the MD&V runs its last passenger train between Greenwood, Md. and Lewes, Del. 2 July: the BC&A board authorises purchasing all the stock of the Baltimore & Eastern and operating it under lease. 20 July: the MD&V's rail franchises and property are conveyed by deed to E. B. Leaf Company for $225,000. 27 July: the State of Maryland appoints an Eastern Shore Railroad Commission to study service between Baltimore and the Eastern Shore; it reports on 20 August, considering a car-float ferry between Canton and Love Point. 3 October: the BC&A sells the steamboat Old Point Comfort for scrap. 12 December: the Baltimore & Eastern is organised, controlled by the BC&A. 31 December: the BC&A contracts with Stone's Express, Inc. for connecting truck service between Cambridge, Easton and Salisbury. In the same year the BC&A discontinues its Pocomoke River Line and cuts back both the Choptank River Line (Denton to Windy Hill) and the Nanticoke River Line (Seaford to Sharpstown).
The company that could not pay its own bond interest in 1922 spent 1923 buying the wreckage of a neighbour, scrapping its boats, and — on the last day of the year — hiring a trucking firm.
Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic RailwayPennsylvania Railroad Company
Source · checked 2026-08-06