Chapter Meeting – October 19, 2022

 OCT. 19 SOCIAL MEETING PROGRAM of the WM Chapter NRHS will be held at 7 PM in the Cumberland Railroad Museum at 17 Howard Street, among the shops at Canal Place. Nearest parking is in the parking lot along Howard Street beneath the Interstate Route 68 bridge, opposite the historic Footer’s Dye Works building. Parking is free on a first-come basis. Be careful when crossing Howard Street because motor vehicles do not always fully stop at the bottom of westbound Exit 43B ramp. Meeting is open to the public at no charge.

     Railroad photographer and historian Tom Biery will give an encore presentation of his program, Kelly-Springfield Tire Company and the B&O Railroad in Cumberland. It is a short history of Cumberland’s Kelly-Springfield Tire plant and the role that railroads played in providing transportation service for a major tire company. While doing historical research in preparing this program, Tom discovered many interesting facts about the interplay between a tire manufacturer and local railroads. For example, when comparing sections of USGS topographic maps between 1900 and 1925, Tom noticed that over a twenty-five-year period, the dual tracks of the B&O Railroad on the West End of the Cumberland Division were re-aligned for a half mile to provide more useful property for the construction of the Kelly-Springfield Tire plant. Tom will reveal more fascinating historical facts during his interesting talk.