Sleepy Old Mt. Royal Station

About a quarter to five on the afternoon of April 28, 1958, there was a sudden bustle of activity in Mt. Royal Station, down in the grassy hollow where Mt. Royal Avenue meets Cathedral Street. The activity was predictable; the famous B&O Royal Blue train to New York was taking on passengers, responding to the conductor's "All abo-o-o-o-ord!" And on this day because this trip was the last one the B&O Royal Blue would ever make to New York (service would be discontinued after this run) the usual crowd had bee swelled by railroad buffs and souvenir hunters.

But it was the Royal Blue's arrival and departure everyday for 62 years that accounted for whatever little railroading that went on in Mt Royal Railroad Station. "Standing around doing nothing all day," a porter who worked there was heard to say, "gets on my nerves."

From the moment the station opened in 1896 with its Romanesque design and red tile roof right out of Hansel and Gretle, it was out of date, thought to be "old-fashioned." and the place moved sleepily though the years in that mood. The ambiance in the waiting room was of a mountain lodge after dinner, and positively soporific. Fires burned at fireplaces at either end of the station. A gramophone played soothing music. Art exhibits periodically turned the place into an art gallery. Four rocking chairs made the whole place look like somebody's front porch. (Once, in 1943, the chairs suddenly disappeared. Citizen outcry was so vociferous that management felt compelled to explain publicly that the chairs were only being repaired and would be returned soon. They were.)

Outside the slopes became a natural amphitheater and crowds would gather in it for carnival-like celebrations. They cheered Cardinal Gibbons, Herbert Hoover, Woodrow Wilson, the Queen of Romania. But by 1961, passenger trains stopped coming through Mt. Royal. The pace of the place went from slow to stop. The art came down, the rocking chairs disappeared, the amphitheater grew silent, the fires died out.

Today, the Maryland Institute of Art flourishes inside and, outside, too. All that remains of railroading at Mt Royal and of the glory days of the Royal blue to New York is, for those who cherish the memory of it, and who would strain to hear it still, the sound of the conductor's "All Abo-o-o-o-ard" shouted out in the late afternoons of old Mt. Royal Station, circa, 1950.