The line to the Mt. Savage works was finished and operating in December 1844, while Maryland Mining's Eckhart branch entered service in May 1846. Throughout the following years, the Mt. Savage operation fell on hard times, and the Eckhart coal business has always been the more prosperous of the two. The C&P later became the initial stretch of B&O's main line to Connellsville, Pennsylvania, first via trackage rights and following 1903 by way of lease. Eckhart Jct. was established just west of the Narrows, Mt. Savage Jct. a few miles to the north.