How Did Building a Railroad Help Maryland and Baltimore? Click below to hear a big steam engine as it roars past. On July 4, 1828, Charles Carroll laid the cornerstone for the first railroad in the United States at Mount Clare, a neighborhood in west Baltimore. For 130 years thereafter the goods of the Free State, Pennsylvania, and the Midwest moved mainly by rail into Baltimore for shipment to the rest of the country and the world through Baltimore's port. Natural resources and goods from other countries were also moved through the port headed for inland destinations via the B&O, C&O, Western Maryland, and the Pennsylvania railways. Today, CSX Transportation, a system of two different railroad companies, carries goods and people in, around, and through Maryland. CSX Transportation was formed when two railroad companies, Chessie System and the Seaboard System, merged into one company. When one mentions CSX, both the very old and the very new come to mind. Some people call CSX the last of the railways. Others see CSX as the future of railroading. In this lesson, we will examine the importance of the early railroads and look at how CSX Transportation is important to Maryland and the Port of Baltimore today.

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