West Baltimore station
railway station in Baltimore, Maryland
West Baltimore station is a commuter rail station located in the western part Baltimore, Maryland, along the Northeast Corridor. It is served by MARC Penn Line trains. The station is positioned on an elevated grade at 400 Smallwood Street near parallel West Mulberry and West Franklin Streets extending off U.S. Route 40. Three large surface lots are available for commuters. The station only has staircases from street level and two low-level side platforms next to the outer tracks and is thus not accessible to people with some mobility disabilities, but MTA Maryland plans to renovate the station with accessible platforms and entrances.
History
Edmondson
The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad (B&P), owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad, opened to Baltimore in 1873. By the early 1900s, PRR stopped at Lafayette and Calverton, also known as Gwynns Falls, west of Baltimore, serving local residential areas. Because both the B&P and the Northern Central Railway approached Penn Station from the west, PRR through trains from Washington, D.C. to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania had to operate in reverse from Baltimore to Washington, D.C. To correct this, PRR planned to replace the two stops with a single intercity-oriented station located between them, along with a wye at the north end of the Baltimore and Potomac Tunnel to allow trains to bypass Penn Station.
PRR opened bidding for station construction in July 1916. Its cost was $50,000, the equivalent to $1,500,000 in 2025.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “West Baltimore station” as railway station in Baltimore, Maryland. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as railway station in Baltimore, Maryland. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7984375. Authority coordinates are 39.293, -76.653. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1873, 1916 and 2025.
Architectural summaries often privilege surviving fabric and can understate demolished phases, contested use or displaced communities. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “West Baltimore station”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow West Baltimore station primary sources, West Baltimore station archive and West research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “West Baltimore station”?
- What physical evidence or contemporary plan supports the description?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “West Baltimore station” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.