The American fascination with trains seems to know no limits, and Aberdeen has a golden opportunity to capitalize on that fascination, thanks to the recent successful efforts to move the old B&O passenger station away from the tracks at the West Bel Air Avenue crossing.
Though Aberdeen has for the past century been most closely associated with the nearby, nationally-prominent Army proving grounds, the community was established first and foremost as a whistle stop town for its vegetable canning industry that thrived in the 19th and early 20th centuries.
Anyone who has read a little local history on Aberdeen knows it started out as three distinct communities that grew together, and two of them came into being largely because of train stops. On the east side was Halls Cross Roads. The name Aberdeen was even said to have come into being because an émigré of the original Aberdeen in Scotland had posted an Aberdeen sign at a local train station.
Aberdeen's status as a longtime rail town makes it a prime candidate to become a hub for railroad enthusiasts, and possibly a good way to get the ball rolling would be to partner with nearby Perryville as the B&O station is turned into a visitor-friendly historic site.
Like Aberdeen, Perryville grew up along the rail lines, and remains home to rail operations, though the rail yard that once dominated the town is long gone.
When the MARC commuter rail service was put into operation a little more than two decades ago, an old train station in Perryville was refurbished and turned into a sort of rail museum. It's hardly a tourist destination, but it gives commuters something a little out of the ordinary to look at.
Between the two communities, however, it may well be possible to coordinate some sort of upper Chesapeake area rail museum. One possibility would be to put artifacts from 100 years ago or more in the Aberdeen museum, as its rail history is largely tied to that era. Meanwhile, Perryville could focus on the 1940s and 1950s, when the town boomed as a major railroad hub during World War II and the decade following, including when the Bainbridge Naval Training Center was operating full bore. Many a new enlistee in the Navy first set foot in Maryland by stepping off a train in Perryville before heading off to Bainbridge.
Looking forward a decade or more, it may even come to pass that the railroad bridge over the Susquehanna River, these days known as the Amtrak bridge, could be incorporated into a two-community rail museum.
Planning is in the early stages to replace the century-plus-year-old bridge, and there is a possibility it could be left in place as a piece of history, even as a modern bridge takes its place.
Were the bridge to be kept in place, it could be managed by a rail museum organization as something of a tourist attraction for people looking for an opportunity to walk across the river. It's not all that odd an idea, as 60 miles upriver at Harrisburg, the old Walnut Street bridge over the Susquehanna has been closed to cars and trucks since the Agnes flood of 1972, but it remains open to foot traffic and is popular with joggers, cyclists and people just out for a summer stroll.
That's off in the future. For now, Aberdeen has a fine historic building that needs a lot of work done to it. That task shouldn't be undertaken in isolation, as there are plenty of people in the region with plenty of interest in railroad history. Now is the time to harness their energy.