Monday, May 27 Memorial Day Bike Ride on Short Line Trail

Catonsville Rails To Trails is leading a Memorial Day Bike Ride on Monday, May 27, 2013 from

Atwaters Bakery at 815 Frederick Road.  The ride will begin at 8:30 a.m. and is a short (6 miles) and slow ride, very casual.  This ride is perfect for families, novices, those who haven't been on their bike in awhile and those who haven't seen the Short Line Trail.

One of the most beautiful portions of the Catonsville Short Line Trail is near the National Cemetery.  When you round the corner and get a look at the cemetery known as "Little Arlington", it takes your breath away.  The perfectly symmetrical rows of tomb stones are 16 feet apart and seem to go on forever.  It makes you think about the veterans and their service to our country.  It makes you grateful.

A group of four students from Mt. St. Joe have spent two weeks on the trail, clearing years of vegetation and installing red, white and blue benches and planter.  Evan Smith, Matthew Reed, Michael Valderas and Paul Newman are working as a team and completing  their project,  "Cemetery Overlook" before Memorial Day.  The  project sponsor is CRTT Board Member, Sheldon Smith.

Mt. St. Joe encourages students to volunteer the last two weeks of their senior year in lieu of taking final exam if they have a C average or better.  The boys documented their hard work and compiled a Senior Project Presentation, THE RAILROAD (1).

To celebrate this project, CRTT will lead a Memorial Day Ride.  The ride will be short and slow at a very casual pace.  The tour will ride along some local roads and the newly completed section (crusher run finish) of the Short Line Trail.  Plan to  pay your respects to our Veterans from the Cemetery Overlook. Feel free to bring flags and flowers. We will then turn around and head back to C-ville for a total of  6 or so miles.  Meet at Atwaters Bakery at 815 Frederick Road at  8:30AM on Monday, May 27.  The group will return at about 1-1.5 hrs.(in time for Memorial day celebrations).  No maps or cues for this ride.  Questions?  Contact chas.murph@gmail.com.

Click here to read related Sun article by Julie Braughman

Cemetery Overlook: The site occupied by Baltimore National Cemetery was an estate called Cloud Capped (or Cap), which occupied an elevated location adjacent to Frederick Road as early as 1750.

The property was part of the holdings of the Baltimore Company and Charles Carroll of Carrollton. Residents apparently observed the attacking British fleet sailing toward Fort McHenry in 1814, and sent a messenger to warn the city. In 1890, when Blanchard and Susan Randall acquired the estate as a summer home, its 90 acres were studded with mature specimen trees including spreading beech, white pine, Norway spruce, chestnut and walnut.

Nearby, the diminutive 5.2-acre Loudon Park National Cemetery was at or approaching capacity and additional burial space was needed. The War Department was assessing several possible sites in the Baltimore area as an extension of Loudon Park, as well as other sites in the US, but settled on the Frederick Road site.

Conversion of the Cloud Capped estate to a national shrine was accomplished under the Works Progress Administration (WPA), a Depression-era make-work program.

The Baltimore property-envisioned as Maryland's "Little Arlington"-was to accommodate 40,000 to 45,000 interments of veterans and their family. The government took possession of the 72.2-acre Cloud Capped in September 1936. An estimated 100-150 men worked on the project between early 1937 and August 1940

The first interment was Dec. 18, 1936, although the cemetery was formally dedicated on Memorial Day, May 30, 1941

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The Catonsville Short Line Rail Road ran from the heart of Catonsville, through Spring Grove Hospital, to Shady Nook, Paradise, Maiden Choice Lane, and passed by the Baltimore National Cemetery as it completed its route through St Charles Seminary (now Charlestown), Loudon Park Cemetery to Calvert Station in Baltimore City.

The Catonsville Rails to Trails (CRTT) organization is converting the former Short Line right of way into a walking/biking path. This "Cemetery Overlook" park was created in May 2013 by students from Mount Saint Joseph High School doing a Senior Project (Evan Smith, Paul Newman, Matthew Reed and Michael Valderas and their sponsor Sheldon Smith). Funding was provided by CRTT and Sheldon Smith. Special thanks to Link Mechanical (Chris Podowski and crew) for donating their labor to grade and gravel the site.