Amtrak 164 leads Capitol Limited 30 at Martinsburg WV Roundhouse. Drone view.

The Roundhouse fire occurred on May 14, 1990. Investigation determined that the fire was incendiary in nature and several middle school students were charged for the fire. The students set fire to pallets piled in the center of the roundhouse and the fire progressed very rapidly.

The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad Martinsburg shops are one of the few remaining examples of innovative nineteenth-century engineering and industrial architecture. Not only is the engineering and architecture important. The laborers who worked here played a major role in the first days of “The Great Railway Strike of 1877,” a pivotal episode in American labor history. The shops sit in a shallow valley along the banks of Tuscarora Creek, in Martinsburg, West Virginia. The B&O shop maintenance complex was constructed in 1866 and consists of three buildings: the Machine and Woodworking Shop, the West Roundhouse, and the Car Shop.

Chartered in 1827, the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first public-use railroad in the United States. Begun in Baltimore, the ever-expanding tracks reached Martinsburg on May 21, 1842. In 1848, the railroad began expanding facilities at Martinsburg making it the central maintenance area between Baltimore and Cumberland, Maryland. Construction began with a rectangular engine shed in 1848 on the site of the present shops. The purchase of additional acreage occurred in 1852, and with it, the construction of a machine shop for more serious repairs.