The Queen Anne’s Railroad was a railroad that ran between Love Point, Maryland, and Lewes, Delaware, with connections to Baltimore via ferry across the Chesapeake Bay. The Queen Anne's Railroad company was formed in Maryland in 1894, and received legislative authorization from Delaware in February 1895.[1] The railroad's original western terminus was in Queenstown, Maryland, and was moved via a 13miles extension to Love Point in 1902,[2] which shortened the ferry trip to Baltimore.The Queen Anne's Railroad Company began operating a summer-only Cape May Express between Queenstown and Lewes in 1901 with a connecting steamer across the Delaware Bay to Cape May, New Jersey. The company owned and operated the Queen Anne's Ferry & Equipment Company which consisted of the steamers Endeavor, Queen Anne and Queen Caroline.[3]
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.[4]
Once the railroad tracks were completed to Lewes and Pilottown, they crossed the Lewes and Rehoboth Canal at the present day location of Queen Anne Avenue, to a ferry terminal that allowed passengers to transfer to a ferry to Cape May, New Jersey. In 1899, the Queen Anne's Railroad converted a building in Rehoboth Beach at the corner of Rehoboth Avenue and Surf Avenue (now the corner of Rehoboth Avenue and the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk) "into an elaborate welcome center for the resort visitors who used the Queen Anne's trains."[5] 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.[6] 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.[7]
Through a complex series of acquisitions in 1905, Queen Anne's Railroad ceased to exist and its assets became the property of the Maryland, Delaware and Virginia Railway Company (MD&V), a subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad.[8] Into the 1920s the railroad operated trains from Love Point on the eastern Chesapeake shore town of Love Point, east to Queenstown, Maryland, to Greenwood, Delaware and then to Lewes, Delaware.[9]
Both the Maryland, Delaware and Virginia Railway Company and the nearby Baltimore, Chesapeake and Atlantic Railway were merged into the Baltimore & Eastern Railroad in 1928.[8] Already by 1932 the company substituted with bus service replacing train service along the original route of the railway from Queenstown on the Chesapeake shore of eastern Maryland to Greenwood, and then to Lewes.[10] This bus was gone from the schedule by 1941, as the company dropped its passenger operations.[11]
Much of the railroad's original track has been abandoned, but segments are still used for freight rail service by the Delmarva Central Railroad. In Queen Anne's County, Maryland, a project has converted much of the railroad right-of-way into part of the Cross Island Trail, a rail trail which is, in turn, part of the American Discovery Trail. The path of the railroad is approximated today by the following roads:
A Delaware state historical marker in Milton and another in Ellendale's historic Railroad Square district commemorate the railroad. The original railroad stations in Stevensville and Sudlersville are both still in existence and serve as museums.
In the 1990s, a dinner train operated on the original trackage of Queen Anne's Railroad. The heritage railroad branded both its locomotives and passenger cars as "Queen Anne's Railroad," but it had no direct links to the original 1894-1905 railroad. The dinner train's center of operations was at the former Lewes, Delaware station and traveled to Nassau, Delaware. Passenger cars were pulled by a USATC S100 Class 0-6-0 tank locomotive, produced for the US Army in World War II.[12]