page_title: Baltimore Belt Line
section_title: Electrification
hierarchical_section_title: Baltimore Belt Line / Electrification
caption_attribution_description: English: Powerhouse for the Baltimore Belt Line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, part of the first mainline railroad electrification in 1895. Photo from 1910, when the B&amp;O installed these rotary converters having a combined capacity of 5,000 kw, used to convert 13,200-volt, 3 phase, 25-cycle AC to 675 volts DC. In 1936, these rotary converters were replaced by mercury arc rectifiers.
context_page_description: The Baltimore Belt Line was constructed by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad in the early 1890s to connect the railroad's newly constructed line to Philadelphia and New York City/Jersey City with the rest of the railroad at Baltimore, Maryland. It included the Howard Street Tunnel, the Mount Royal Station for B&O's Royal Blue Line passenger trains, and the first mainline railroad electrification in the United States. The line is currently operated by CSX Transportation as part of its Baltimore Terminal Subdivision.
context_section_description: By this time the Pennsylvania Railroad line through Baltimore and points south had been in operation for twenty years. Due to the built-up nature of the area traversed and the hilly terrain, much of its line through town was in tunnels, which posed severe ventilation problems. Large chimneys were constructed above the Pennsylvania line, in a not entirely successful attempt to disperse the fumes from the coal-fired locomotives. However, by 1890 electric locomotion was beginning to appear possible, and in 1892 the B&O thus contracted with General Electric (GE) for electric locomotives, powerhouse equipment, and an electrical distribution system. This equipment was delivered beginning in 1895, and the first train pulled by an electric locomotive operated through the Howard Street Tunnel on June 27, 1895.
  The grade on the electrified portion was downhill to Camden Station; therefore traffic heading southbound ("westbound", in B&O timetables), from Mount Royal Station, simply drifted through the tunnels. Since the engine was not working, the smoke produced was relatively light. Going upgrade northbound ("eastbound", in B&O timetables) the electric locomotives were coupled to the front of the train at Camden Station and pulled the entire train, including the steam locomotive, through the Howard Street tunnel. When northbound passenger trains stopped at Mt. Royal Station at the north end of the tunnel, the electric locomotive was uncoupled. Northbound freight trains were pulled by electric locomotives for another two miles, until reaching Huntingdon Avenue in east Baltimore. There the steam locomotive closed its cylinder cocks, took up the load, and the electric locomotive uncoupled on the fly, accelerating ahead to a pocket siding between the tracks.
  General Electric installed rotary converters in  B&O's powerhouse near Mt. Royal Station, having a combined capacity of 5,000 kW to convert 13,200-volt, 3 phase, 25-cycle AC to 675 volts DC. In 1936, these rotary converters were replaced by mercury arc rectifiers.
  Initially power was supplied through a unique system in which a pickup shoe rode in a channel above and to one side of the track. This proved vulnerable to contamination from coal smoke, and after a short time it was replaced by a conventional third rail system. When the Howard Street track was made into a gantlet to allow higher clearances, the pickup contacts on one side were mounted on swinging arms to accommodate the varying distance to the third rail. The electrification was finally discontinued in 1952 when dieselization made it unnecessary.
caption: Interior of the B&O's powerhouse in 1910, supplying 675 volts DC to the Baltimore Belt Line
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