Camden Station

Camden Station
MARC, Baltimore Light Rail
MARC combination baggage/passenger coach parked on a stub track east of the B&O Warehouse
Location	301 West Camden Street Baltimore, Maryland
Coordinates	39°17′00″N 76°37′10″W / 39.28346°N 76.619554°W / 39.28346; -76.619554Coordinates: 39°17′00″N 76°37′10″W / 39.28346°N 76.619554°W / 39.28346; -76.619554
Owned by	CSX Transportation
Line(s)	Commuter Rail:   Camden Line Light Rail:   Light Rail Hunt Valley – BWI Marshall   Light Rail Hunt Valley – Cromwell   Light Rail Penn Station – Camden Yards
Platforms	3 island platforms
Tracks	6 (3 Light Rail, 3 MARC)
Connections	3, 19, 27, 35, 120, 160, 320, 410, 411, 420
Construction
Parking	Yes
Bicycle facilities	Yes Bike Share Stop #22 (12 docks)
Disabled access	Yes
History
Opened	1867
Traffic
Passengers (2013)	399 (MARC daily average)
Services
Preceding station   MARC   Following station St. Denis toward Union Station Camden Line Terminus MTA Maryland Hamburg Street toward BWI Marshall Airport Light Rail Hunt Valley – BWI Marshall Convention Center toward Hunt Valley Hamburg Street toward Cromwell Station/Glen Burnie Light Rail Hunt Valley – Cromwell Terminus Light Rail Penn Station – Camden Yards Convention Center toward Penn Station   Former services   Baltimore and Ohio Mt. Winans toward Chicago Grand Central Station Main Line (Baltimore Belt Line) Baltimore Mount Royal Station Terminus Terminus Philadelphia Branch Baltimore Mount Royal Station toward Philadelphia Mt. Winans toward Point of Rocks Old Main Line Terminus

Camden Station, now also referred to as Camden Yards, is a train station at the intersection of Howard and Camden Streets in Baltimore, Maryland, served by MARC commuter rail service and local Light Rail trains. It is adjacent to Oriole Park at Camden Yards. Camden Station was originally built in 1856 by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad as its main passenger terminal in Baltimore and is one of the longest continuously-operated terminals in the United States.

In 1852, the Board of Directors of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) approved the purchase of five blocks of land fronting on Camden Street at a cost of $600,000 for the construction of a new passenger and freight station to serve the city of Baltimore from a larger, more centrally-located site than the B&O's 1830s–1850s depot, Mount Clare Station. Architectural renderings for Camden Station were submitted by the firm of Niernsee and Neilson in 1855. Construction began in phases in 1856 under the supervision of Baltimore architect Joseph F. Kemp, who also partly designed the final version, a three-story brick structure with three towers in the Italianate architectural style. The center section was substantially completed by 1857; thereafter, the station was used by the B&O's passenger trains until the 1980s, one of the longest continuously operated railroad terminals in the U.S. Construction was completed in 1867 with the addition of two wings and the towers following the end of the Civil War. The station's center tower was originally 185 feet (56 m) high.

In February, 1861, Abraham Lincoln travelled through Camden Station in February 1861, on his way to Washington, D.C. to be inaugurated as President of the United States. News of the Battle of Fort Sumter, beginning the Civil War, first reached Baltimore on April 12, 1861, at the B&O's Camden Station telegraph office. The following week, Union troops of the 6th Massachusetts Regiment travelling south on the B&O barricaded themselves at Camden Station when they were attacked by Confederate sympathizers in the Baltimore riot of 1861. During the four-year conflict, the B&O's line between Baltimore and Washington, D.C. was the sole rail link between the Federal capitol and the North, resulting in a vital role for Camden Station as B&O's Baltimore terminal. Trainloads of wounded soldiers and Confederate POWs came through the station following the Battle of Antietam, 75 miles (121 km) west of Baltimore on September 17, 1862. President Lincoln changed trains at Camden Station on November 18, 1863 en route to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania to deliver the Gettysburg Address. Lincoln also used Camden Station on April 18, 1864 when he made an overnight visit to Baltimore for a speaking engagement. A year later, at 10 a.m. on April 21, 1865, the assassinated president's nine-car funeral train arrived at Camden Station, the first stop on its slow journey from Washington to Springfield, Illinois, via the B&O and the Northern Central Railway's Baltimore-Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, line.