08/06/2026
This is the second edition of our series entitled, “FAIRFIELD, THEN and NOW.” These posts feature landmarks of historical significance in and around the Fairfield area, showing pictures of what they looked like THEN, what they look like NOW, and telling their story. The subject of our second FAIRFIELD, THEN and NOW post is the Fairfield Train Station.
With the completion of the final stretch of rails from Orrtanna to Highfield, MD, in 1889 the Hanover Subdivision of the Baltimore and Harrisburg Railway (later the Western Maryland Railroad) brought the town of Fairfield the rail service it had been awaiting since Thaddeus Stevens first started envisioning a railroad back in the 1830s. With rail service, this meant Fairfield would have access to mail, freight, and passenger service, so it needed a train station. Fairfield residents were initially disappointed, though, by the site chosen for the station because it lay a full 0.9 miles from the town itself. This was a too far to walk with mail, freight, or other baggage in tow. But the railroad went ahead with the construction of the station at their proposed site, and passenger service commenced.
Initially, there were two trains daily. The morning train headed east and the evening train returned to the station heading west. Eventually, passenger service grew in popularity, and more daily trains were added. By its peak, there were four trains daily, and this gave rise to the rail excursion that allowed passengers to hop on the first east-bound train in the morning and arrive in cities like Baltimore four hours later. After visiting the big city, passengers could return again, all within the same calendar day. The trains were used traveling to school, work, relatives, and other destinations.
With the invention of the automobile, however, more and more local residents either purchased a car themselves or knew someone in town that had one. With the advent of the automobile age, the need for passenger train service began to wane. Over the years, the number of trains stopping in Fairfield was reduced to two and there were fewer riders through the early 1930s. As a result, the decision was made in 1935 to suspend passenger service to Fairfield. The final two trains ran on August 6, 1935. The morning train went east and the final evening train returned traveling west.
Once passenger service was suspended, the Fairfield Train Station sat empty for years. It was used for several different purposes, most notably as an airplane spotting station during the1940s. Still later, it was decided the station should be torn down. Fairfield resident, Ted Low, asked if he could have the bricks, and with those bricks, he built a house that still stands today across the road from Fairfield Union Cemetery.
All that remains today of the Fairfield Train Station are the small section of rails where a handcar was housed in the station and the subsequent house that Ted Low built west of Fairfield.
