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cost advantage Baltimore enjoyed over rival ports, which soon
siphoned off business. Another source of revenue declined with
the elimination of federal shipbuilding subsidies, which deprived
the Port of business generated by U.S.-flag ship traffic required
to make calls in Baltimore and all other North Atlantic ports.
Baltimore’s “railroad port” was particularly sensitive to the
wave of railroad consolidation, another consequence of the ICC’s
demise. The shakeout, disruptive in the short term, was more
adverse long term: Baltimore lost its opportunity to be the only
East Coast port served by three Class 1 rail carriers, and also was
stung when the corporate headquarters of the Chessie System
decamped for Florida.
Baltimore was in the thick of it as the railroad saga continued
to play itself out during the decade. Conrail, created in 1976 as the
central northeast hub, already served the Port. Then Chessie, born
by the merger of the B&O and C&O in the 1960s, linked up with
Seaboard to become CSX; at the same time, the Norfolk Southern,
knowing CSX would deny it access to Baltimore on the tracks of
Western Maryland Railroad, asked Maryland officials to petition
the ICC to permit access to the Port. But at the eleventh hour,
the powers that be in Annapolis decided not to petition the ICC,
forfeiting the chance for three railroads.
(The Port was never better served than by the Western Mary-
land Railroad, which B&O acquired in 1973 after it was squeezed
by Chessie. The Western Maryland had one purpose: it existed
to serve Maryland and the Port, running between Baltimore and
Hagerstown. Port Covington was the Port’s best general cargo and
grain terminal.)
Norfolk Southern never forgot its rude treatment. Management
focused all their investment on the Port of Norfolk, and by 1985
rail container traffic from Baltimore to the Midwest had declined
24 percent — and increased 25 percent from Norfolk.
In 1986, members of Maryland’s Congressional delegation pre-
vailed in efforts to block Norfolk Southern’s purchase of Conrail,
moved by pleas from CSX that it would harm the Port. Conrail
was subsequently divvied up between CSX and Norfolk Southern,
