Historic Hanover Junction. The Northern Central's Locomotive #17 "York" arrives at Hanover Junction with a passenger train that originated in her namesake city, about 20 miles to the north, and after a short stop, will continue her journey south to Baltimore. The railroad facility you see here was established in 1851 as the junction between the Northern Central Railway, which ran from Sunbury, PA to Baltimore, MD, and the Hanover Branch Railroad, which ran from here to Hanover and Gettysburg, PA, to the northwest. The train seen here is arriving on the Northern Central Track. A switch just out of view on the right side of this photo connected this track to the Hanover Branch in the foreground, which runs off to the left side of the depot building, and dead-ends there today. A turntable used to exist behind where the depot building is, and just behind my camera position is a brick house, which was once the Junction Hotel. The depot building itself was built in 1852, by the Hanover Branch Railroad, and the Northern Central leased a ticket office inside.
This location has a fair amount of history associated with it. At least twice during the Civil War, the junction facilities were attacked by Confederate forces and briefly held. After the Battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863, this place served as a transfer point for wounded soldiers being sent to hospitals in Baltimore and York. In November of 1863, a train carrying then President Abraham Lincoln made the interchange here as he made his famous trip to Gettysburg for the dedication of the military cemetery, where he made one of the shortest and most famous addresses of any US President before or since. The well-known Matthew Brady company took photos here that day, and some purport to show The Great Emancipator himself standing on the platform in front of the depot. The photos are quite compelling, and when you visit this site, the temptation to stand on that spot and daydream is pretty powerful. Less than two years later, a much more somber train also passed through this location, carrying the body of the slain President on its journey home to Springfield, IL.
The depot has been here now for over 160 years, although it fell into serious disrepair in the mid-1900s with the demise of passenger traffic. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, and in the early 2000s, was restored to its Civil War-era appearance. It is truly a fitting destination for the tourist trains at the newly-established Northern Central Railway, which operate between this location and New Freedom, PA.
