Worcester Railroad
railroad · active chartered 1853 (revised 1867); organized 1869; Berlin-Snow Hill opened 1872
The Worcester County line projected to join Snow Hill, the county seat, to Berlin. Organized in 1869 — a treasurer appointed, a right-of-way committee named and E. K. Wilson in the chair — over the objections of the lower county, which wanted the shorter Worcester & Somerset road from Newtown instead. Stockholders were slow to pay their instalments, but the 14-mile Berlin-to-Snow Hill line opened in 1872, confirming Berlin as the rail junction nearest the barrier beach that became Ocean City three years later.
In the record (9)
1869
Worcester County splits over which railroad to build, and a Delaware editor calls the Snow Hill–Berlin plan "a scheme, the absurdity of which [is un]paralleled in railroad history."
The Delaware Tribune of October 7, 1869 described "the friends of the Worcester County Railroad scheme, from Snow Hill to Berlin, opposing those in the lower part of the county who naturally and reasonably desire the construction of the short and direct Worcester and Somerset road from Newtown to a point on the main Peninsular road." The Tribune backed the Newtown (Pocomoke City) route on peninsula-development grounds and dismissed the Snow Hill–Berlin line outright. The northern faction won the first round — Berlin–Snow Hill opened in 1872 — and Berlin's position as the rail head nearest the beach is what made the 1875 resort reachable at all.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1869
Worcester County men organize the Snow Hill–Berlin railroad: a treasurer, a right-of-way committee, and E. K. Wilson in the president's chair.
The Cecil Whig of February 6, 1869 reported that "the Worcester Railroad, to connect Snow Hill and Berlin together, is in fair way to be built. At a meeting held in Snow Hill on the 19th instant, a treasurer was appointed, as also a committee to secure the right of way. E. K. Wilson, Esq., is President of the road." Money came slower than enthusiasm: by March 25 the Delaware Tribune's Worcester County column noted that "stockholders in the Worcester Railroad [are] not paying in their instalments very rapidly." The line opened Berlin to Snow Hill in 1872, giving the county seat a rail connection through the town that would become Ocean City's mainland gateway.
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1871 · 1871-07-08
The Wicomico & Pocomoke agrees to run the Worcester Railroad — the operating deal that puts one company's trains on the whole road toward the beach.
The Cecil Whig of July 8, 1871 reports from Worcester County: "The Worcester Railroad Company commenced on Monday laying its track from Berlin toward Snow Hill, which should be reached in about fourteen weeks. A meeting of the directors was held, and arrangements consummated with the Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad Company to run the Worcester railroad temporarily." The W&P already ran the 23 miles from Salisbury to Berlin. Handing it the Worcester Railroad put a single operator on the rails from the main line through Berlin — the company and the corridor that would carry the first train to Ocean City in 1876.
Wicomico and Pocomoke RailroadCol. Lemuel Showell
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1871 · 1871-11-25
By late 1871 the Worcester Railroad is at Snow Hill's door — the directors move the line off Market Street to run along the river wharves.
The Cecil Whig of November 25, 1871, quoting the Snow Hill Messenger: "The Worcester Railroad is approaching Snow Hill, and will soon be in order for business. At a recent meeting the directors determined to change the proposed route through the town, and instead of running through Market street, to run by the wharves along the margin of the river. The depot will be upon Petit's lot, below LeKies & Collin's steam saw mill. The financial condition of the Company is good. By Christmas it will be formally opened for passenger and freight traffic." A week later the same paper noted "the iron for completing the last stretch of the Worcester Railroad has arrived." The line did not quite make Christmas: the Smyrna Times of November 29 reported it was proposed to commence travel on the first of January, and the road is generally dated to 1872.
A railroad routed to the wharves instead of the main street tells you what it was for. Oysters and lumber first, passengers second — the beach resort was still four years away.
Source · checked 2026-08-11
1873 · 1873-09-30
The Worcester Railroad's third annual statement — three stations, 18,263 bushels of oysters, and two papers that can't agree whether it made money.
The Worcester Railroad — the Salisbury-and-Berlin line's extension down to Snow Hill, operated under contract by the Wicomico & Pocomoke — published its third annual statement in late September 1873, covering ten months and twenty days. Gross earnings $10,029.40½, expenses $7,694.13½ (of which $7,111.11½ went to the W. & P. Co. for operating the road), net earnings $2,835.36½. Over three stations it shipped 21,931 bushels of grain, 1,605,300 feet of lumber, 39,510 lbs of berries and 18,263 bushels of oysters. The Wilmington editor thought that remarkable: 'There [is no] older Peninsula R. R. which can show a better annual statement than this.' Three weeks earlier the same paper's own Berlin correspondent had written that the Worcester road 'failed to pay expenses by five hundred dollars.'
the Snow Hill branch's first full year was reported as both a small profit and a small loss
Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1874 · 1874-10-01
On October 1, 1874 the Worcester Locomotive Company takes the Berlin–Snow Hill road out of the Wicomico & Pocomoke's hands.
The Berlin correspondent, writing October 26, 1874: the Worcester Railroad running from Berlin to Snow Hill "ha[d] been [operated] by the W. & P. until the 1st inst., when the Worcester Locomotive Co. took control of it." The new company had ordered rolling stock — and the car leased to the Newtown road was withdrawn "because the latter road failed to pay the rent." Three weeks earlier a Wilmington paper had noted that "the new engine for the Worcester R. R. is being fixed up at Berlin." The same letter sets out Dr. Hammond of Newtown's rival scheme for a coastal trunk line from Cape Charles to the Delaware Breakwater, fighting "the Delaware, Eastern Shore and W. & P. roads," with the Old Dominion Steamship Line behind him.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875
The economy that paid for the beach: 300,000 quarts of strawberries out of Berlin in one season, and a berry crop worth $100,000 to Wicomico County.
A letter from Ocean City to the Wilmington Gazette, reprinted in July 1875, reported that during the season just past over 300,000 quarts of strawberries had been shipped from Berlin, with blackberries, raspberries and whortleberries going north car after car. The Salisbury Advertiser put Wicomico County's berry crop alone at over $100,000 for the year. The same column noted the freight-rate war: the Old Dominion Steamship Company, having bought control of the Worcester Railway, had built from the Delaware line to Berlin and connected through Lewes to New York by boat, and rates had fallen on the Wicomico & Pocomoke and every other peninsula road. "And yet some say that railways are no advantage."
Ocean City was floated on berries. The railroads that carried strawberries to New York are the same railroads that carried Baltimoreans to the beach.
Unverified — sourced but not confirmed against a primary record.
Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1875 · 1875-07-24
How you got to Ocean City in its first summer: rail by way of Wilmington, or a Baltimore steamer to Crisfield and the Eastern Shore railroad.
Baltimore's German daily Der Deutsche Correspondent told its readers on July 24, 1875 how to reach the new resort: the place is reached by rail via Wilmington, or by the steamers running from Baltimore to Crisfield and then the eastern railroad. A Delaware editor the same week described "a railroad right up to the back door" — the Wicomico & Pocomoke's extension had reached the bay shore opposite the beach, and passengers crossed the last stretch by boat. The direct rail bridge across Sinepuxent Bay into town was still years off. Well into the autumn, the Old Dominion Steamship Company's new Worcester Railway line from the Delaware state line to Berlin, connecting to the Lewes–New York boats, was cutting freight rates across the whole peninsula.
The first tourists came by train, boat, and boat again. Ocean City's whole first season ran on other people's infrastructure.
rail reached the bay shore opposite the town by 1875 or 1878 — sources differ
Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06
1885
The Pennsylvania Railroad takes the Delmarva Peninsula — and Ocean City's line is one of only two roads it does not own.
Through 1885 the Pennsylvania Railroad absorbed the Delaware, Maryland & Virginia and effectively took control of the peninsula's rail network. The Wilmington Morning News summary, reprinted across the shore in August, put Ocean City on the short list of holdouts: 'The Pennsylvania road has now almost a monopoly of the Peninsula, having under its control all the roads from Chestertown to Bombay Hook, and the short road from Salisbury to Ocean City' — the Wicomico & Pocomoke. Earlier in the year the Eastville Herald reported a rumour that the New York, Philadelphia & Norfolk would take the Wicomico & Pocomoke instead and 'place a fast train on that line between Ocean City and Salisbury.' The August letter-writer in the Aegis wanted more: 'Now that the Pennsylvania R. R. has extended one of its branches so near to this spot, it is to be hoped that it will buy the railroad running from Berlin, through which it passes, to Ocean City, and thus facilitate the travel from this place to our metropolis. If such be the case, the success of Maryland's one seaside resort as a fashionable watering place is assured.'
Everybody understood in 1885 that whoever owned the last four miles of track into Ocean City owned Ocean City's summer. It took another decade for that to be settled.
Wicomico and Pocomoke Railroad
Source · checked 2026-08-06