Biking the Northern Central RR Trail

The Northern Central Railroad Trail (NCRT) extends 20 miles from Hunt Valley, Maryland, to the Mason-Dixon line where it joins the Heritage Rail Trail County Park (HRTCP) that covers the 21 miles to York, Pennsylvania. The 2007 User Survey (a .pdf file) provides a brief history of the HRTCP. The trails follow the route of the old Northern Central Railroad, which leads to easy cycling without any serious hills. The trails are about 10 feet wide with a stone dust surface.

Note -- click on the thumbnails below to see larger images.
Note -- markers below can be found on this interactive Google map.

Friday, November 10^th, 2006

November 10th was a Federal holiday in honor of Veterans Day, and I decided to take advantage of the sunny and warm weather and bike the NCRT. The day got off to a bad start when I discovered a flat front tire, and worsened when I found out that my patch kit was out of rubber cement. Fortunately I found a new tube in my supplies, and loaded everything into the van and took off. The trip ground to a halt on the Baltimore Beltway. It is always a bad sign when helicopters show up. I finally make to the trail at the Parkton parking lot near Mile Post 13 (Marker C on the interactive Google map) at about 12:30 (left photo, which looks toward the south). I headed north toward Pennsylvania, 7 miles away. It is slightly uphill northbound, which is difficult to tell visually, but made a noticeable difference in my speed. The area is very rural with few buildings and only a couple of road crossings (including I-83 bridges). I encountered perhaps a dozen people in Maryland. The border (at 39°43' despite the fact that the original Charter of Maryland set the boundary at 40°) is the Mason-Dixon Line, and it is duly noted on the trail (right photo; Marker D). Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon used astronomy to mark the border with large limestone blocks once per mile for 233 miles.

The character of the trail changes considerably in Pennsylvania. The surface of the path is slightly better (still unpaved), but there many more signs of human activity (left photo; Marker E). There are also small towns every few miles, which somehow have survived on the Pennsylvania side of the border. Just as the railroad used to, the trail goes right through the center of the towns. This provides easy access to cafes, restaurants, a railroad museum in New Freedom, and even a bed and breakfast in Railroad, PA. The railroad track itself also appears to be operational, although there are no scheduled trains (but a recent unscheduled one). Two cars (right photo) mark the end of the track in New Freedom (Marker F). I turned around at Glen Rock (Marker G) and enjoyed the mostly downhill return trip to Parkton. I continued south as Mile Post 9 (4 miles past Parkton) before calling it a day.

Monday, October 13^th, 2008

I returned to the NCRT on Columbus Day and took advantage of the good weather to bike the entire NCRT. I started at Glencoe Road (near Mile Post 5; Marker B) and headed north to the Mason-Dixon Line (Marker D; left photo). After a recent series of flat tires, I bought new tires and a portable pump. I  had my first opportunity to use the pump a few miles south of the Mason-Dixon Line, but fortunately it was for someone else's flat tire. There was a new (?), informative plaque about the historic boundary (right photo) just north of the Line.  The altitude at the Line is about 800 feet. The trail descends about 200' in the first 2.2 miles heading south (a grade of 1.7%), which  makes for a much faster southbound ride than the northbound ride. The trail falls another 150' during the 3.7 miles to the I-83 underpass (a grade of 0.8%), but the remainder of the trail is nearly flat. I rode the 20 miles to the south terminus of the trail (Marker A) before heading back to Glencoe Road.