Frederick and Pennsylvania Line Railroad Company time, no connection had been made with the B&O railroad to the south and no station had been built in Frederick city but a local citizen wished the road success because it had been met with great opposition. On October 7, 1872, the Board approved seven manned stations with annual compensation for its agents at $750 per year ($=). The following May, the railroad had regularly scheduled passenger service (two trains a day) between Frederick City and the Western Maryland connection in Bruceville, Maryland and in Littlestown for connections north. By July, 1872, the railroad directly connected with the B&O
Franklin B. Gowen president, Charles E. Smith, so that when Smith took a needed ocean voyage for his health in mid-1869, 33-year-old Gowen was put in charge upon Smith's recommendation to the Board of Managers. When Smith was unable to return for the next board election in January 1870, Gowen was elected president in his own right, a position he would occupy for more than a decade. The Philadelphia and Reading Railroad was a regional carrier only, not a trunk line with its own through connections to Pittsburgh, Chicago and beyond, like the Pennsylvania, the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) or the Erie railroads.