Marble blocks from quarries in the Cockeysville area were used in 1836 to bed the track for this section of the Baltimore and Susquehanna, one of the nation’s earliest commercial railroads. Revealed during construction of the MTA Light Rail, the marble track bed represents an early British experimental railroad technology that was only briefly used in the U.S. The Baltimore and Susquehanna Railroad opened a corridor between central Pennsylvania and Baltimore, strategically drawing commerce away from Philadelphia. Rail transport helped make Cockeysville marble one of Baltimore County’s most important nineteenth-century industrial products.
