The Trolley Line #9 Trail is open again. Baltimore County closed the stretch between its two Oella Avenue crossings for erosion work starting the week of August 31. In an October 16 update, the county said the stabilization along Cooper Branch was complete and the trail was back in public use, with crews still doing minor repairs.
The county had estimated the job would take about five weeks, and the trail reopened by mid-October. Most of the other open questions on Catonsville's trails are not county jobs. The second trail in town, the Catonsville Short Line Trail, is still about 20 percent short of finished. Moving it forward depends mainly on Catonsville Rails to Trails, a nonprofit that started in 1996 and will celebrate its 30th anniversary on November 7.
What the work along Cooper Branch built
The #9 Trail runs 1.25 paved miles from the end of Edmondson Avenue through Oella toward Main Street in Ellicott City. It has boardwalk sections, and the corridor follows Cooper Branch through a wooded cut with hand-cut granite walls on both sides. Running next to a stream is what makes the trail worth walking. It is also why the trail needed repairs.
The county's project page breaks the work into two sections:
- Section 1: about 135 feet of boulder toe protection along the base of the southern streambank, fill to rebuild the slope up to the trail, and removal of hazardous trees.
- Section 2: about 35 feet of rock toe protection along another eroding stretch of Cooper Branch, plus more hazardous tree removal.
The county explains that rock toe protection puts large rocks at the bottom of a streambank so moving water can't wash the soil out from under it. That keeps the slope from failing and protects the trail above it. If you walked the trail before the closure, look for new rock at the waterline and gaps where trees used to be. The county also posted before and after photos of the work.
The current status, in the county's own words:
"Work to stabilize the trail and prevent future erosion into the stream has been completed. The trail is now open for public use while crews continue making minor repairs."
During the closure, the trail stayed open from the west side of Oella Avenue up to Edmondson Avenue, Stonewall Road and Chalfonte Drive. That meant the Catonsville end was walkable, but you couldn't get through to Oella. With the middle reopened, the full route is usable again.
A trolley line built in 1899, now a park trail
According to Catonsville Rails to Trails, the trolley arrived in 1899 and ran for 55 years. The nonprofit's founding purpose is turning old streetcar and rail corridors like this one into walking and biking routes, preserving local rail history, and pushing for bike infrastructure. It began in 1996 and formally incorporated in 1999.
The #9 is now a county park trail, and the county paid for this fall's streambank work. The group still treats it as part of its mission. In a February 19, 2026 letter to the county, the group asked for the swing gates on park trails, the #9 included, to be replaced with ADA-compliant removable bollards.
On the Short Line, the group has gone further and raised the money and overseen the construction itself.
The Short Line is roughly 80 percent of a trail
The Catonsville Short Line Trail follows a railroad that broke ground on December 6, 1883, and was finished in November 1884 for an estimated $37,000. At its busiest it ran as many as eight round-trip passenger trains a day between Catonsville and Baltimore, plus freight. The last carload ran in April 1972.
The trail today covers 2.4 miles. According to Catonsville Rails to Trails, the group has been "raising funds, overseeing construction and promoting the trail" since 1999, and the trail is about 80 percent complete as of 2026. Those 2.4 miles aren't one continuous path. They come in three pieces, and two of them are what the group is working to close:
- Catonsville West and Catonsville East. The I-695 Beltway separates them. For now, wayfinding signs send trail users along Frederick Road to cross the highway. The group wants to build a pedestrian bridge over I-695 instead.
- Catonsville East and the Beechfield Section. Beechfield isn't connected to the rest of the trail yet, and you reach it from S. Beechfield Avenue. The group is working on a route around Charlestown Senior Living to link the two.
- The goal. A continuous trail of about 3 miles connecting Main Street Catonsville, UMBC, Paradise, Western Tech, Charlestown and Southwest Baltimore.
Both the bridge and the Beechfield connection are goals the group is pursuing. Neither has been announced as a funded county construction project with a schedule.
The finished parts have plenty of character. The Charlestown section is dense woodland where deer, foxes and wild turkeys live. The Cemetery Overlook looks out over the National Cemetery, which locals call "Little Arlington." The Birds of Paradise project has hung more than 30 birdhouses along the route. A large mural at Shady Nook Avenue shows the train bridge that used to cross the Beltway. The Spring Grove stretch still has original railroad tracks and historical wayside exhibits. A boardwalk links the Mellor section to Bloomingdale Avenue. The group's 2022 annual-meeting presentation lists that Mellor-to-Bloomingdale link among the segments it built, along with directional and historic signs, murals, restored track, benches and birdhouses.
The Shady Nook mural is a good illustration of the gap. It shows the bridge the railroad once had over the Beltway, and the group's top remaining goal is a new crossing at roughly the same point.
Where the next pieces get decided
The group's February 2026 letter to the county sets out its current asks. It says the group received an FY26 Bikeways Grant for Complete Streets work on Frederick Road at the #8 Streetcar Path, on the condition that the county's Department of Public Works and Transportation manages the project. It also says the group applied for county planning grants to improve the #8 path and the Short Line. And it asks the county to finish connections from Catonsville Community Park to North Rolling Road and Oakdale Avenue.
That park is at an early stage too. The county lists the Catonsville Community Park enhancement as in pre-design. Possible additions include trail and bridge repairs, a pavilion, benches, a drinking fountain, pickleball courts and accessibility work, depending on funding and community input.
Two dates in November are part of how this work gets paid for and done:
Saturday, November 7, 6 to 9 p.m. Thrive Together: A Toast to the Trails takes place at The Chapel, 600 Frederick Road. It is the group's 30th-anniversary celebration, with drinks and heavy hors d'oeuvres, and it raises money for what the group calls "the next thirty years." Tickets are sold through the event page, and sponsorship questions go to [email protected].
Saturday, November 21. Patapsco Heritage Greenway and the group are holding a tree maintenance and invasive removal workday at Shady Nook Avenue. It is the last of three fall workdays on the Short Line, after September sessions at Maiden Choice Lane and Paradise Avenue.
Walking both trails before the holidays
The group says its trails are open from sunup to sundown. As November days get shorter, that window gets small after work, so weekends are the easier time to go.
For the #9, there's parking at the Edmondson and Chalfonte end and in Lot A next to The Trolley Stop at 6 Oella Avenue. The Trolley Stop lists itself as open Tuesday through Sunday and closed Mondays. The county's closure notice gave the eastern Oella Avenue crossing as the one near the Trolley Stop and The Breadery. Near the one-mile mark, the Banneker Historical Park & Museum is a short detour off the trail. At the Ellicott City end, a 0.2-mile bridge crossing takes you into Historic Ellicott City, and a half-mile along River Road gets you to the Grist Mill Trail in Patapsco Valley State Park.
For the Short Line, west of the Beltway, park near the Armory at 130 Mellor Avenue or near 55 Wade Avenue. East of it, there's parking behind Western School of Technology outside school hours and along Garden Ridge Road, Paradise Avenue and Shady Nook Avenue. The Mellor Avenue lot works well on Sundays in November. The Greater Catonsville Chamber's Sunday Farmers Market runs November 1, 8, 15 and 22, and the November 1 listing gives 9 a.m. to noon at 15 Mellor Avenue. Atwater's at 815 Frederick Road posts hours for every day of the week and has coffee, soup and sandwiches.
The last Sunday market is November 22. The next week, the Catonsville community association has announced its annual tree lighting for November 28.
The trails Catonsville has today came out of 30 years of fundraising, building and asking the county for more, and the work isn't finished. At Equity One Realty, we follow projects like the #9 repair and the Short Line's missing links because they shape everyday life in the neighborhoods we serve. If you'd like to know how your own home compares in that market, start with our Get Your Instant Valuation tool and a direct conversation with our broker.
