John Wagner von Briesen, Jr.

John Wagner von Briesen, Jr. died on October 26th at the University of Maryland Shock Trauma Center after complications from a fall at his home. He was 84 years old. Born in Bolton Hill at the Maryland Women’s Hospital (now the MICA Myerhoff House), he moved permanently to Bolton Hill in 1995. John had a lifelong fascination with trains and transportation and was known by neighborhood children for his extensive American Flyer train garden in the basement of the home he shared with his wife of 28 years, Sallye Perrin. For many years, his train garden was the field trip for Bolton Hill Nursery’s Transportation Day and was also viewed by adults and children alike at annual holiday parties.

Von Briesen graduated from Saint Paul’s School, where he ran track and played on the 1961 lacrosse team that won the City Varsity Championship. He sang in the Old Saint Paul's Church Men and Boys Choir, which fostered a lifelong interest in choral music and opera. He graduated from Johns Hopkins University with an engineering degree.

John started his long career in transportation with a job on the B&O Railroad where his father, mother, and brother had worked. He rode on the railroad clearance car, measuring tunnels in West Virginia on the now-abandoned St. Louis Line. The clearance car is currently on display in the Roundhouse at the National Museum of Railroad History & Innovation (formerly the B&O Railroad Museum). He later worked at the Port of Baltimore and the Maryland Mass Transit Administration (MTA), where he served as project manager for the initial 22-mile Central Light Rail Line. John led the team of designers and contractors who completed the project in an unprecedented 4 years, providing light rail service on opening day to the new Orioles Park at Camden Yards in April 1992.

Von Briesen joined AECOM and worked on transit projects in Pittsburgh, Dallas, and New Orleans. He served as project manager for the design and construction of the River Line in Southern New Jersey, a light rail line connecting Camden and Trenton. He later worked for Houston Metro, where he led planning and design for the University Light Rail Line. Throughout his career, he was highly respected for delivering projects on time and within budget and for building effective teams to accomplish the work.

As an avocation, John loved rail adventures and was an avid enthusiast of railroad inspection cars (speeders). He and his wife, Sallye, rode their speeder on the Alaska Railroad from Seward to Fairbanks, through Copper Canyon in Mexico, to Churchill, Manitoba, and to Labrador City in Canada. They frequently took long-distance Amtrak trains to Chicago, New Orleans, Florida, Los Angeles, and the Isaac Walton Inn in Montana, where they went cross-country skiing. In retirement, John spent many hours volunteering at the Stewartstown Railroad, building and repairing track and helping to construct an open-air excursion car.

He loved baking cookies and pies and collecting clocks and pocket watches. Family adventures included bicycling on the C&O Canal towpath, the Great Allegheny Passage, and the carriage trails in Acadia National Park. For many years, Thanksgiving meant hiking with family in Shenandoah National Park. He entertained his grandchildren with fishing and canoeing, building model rockets, and backyard ballistics. He was a sailor and, in the 1980s, a crew member in two Annapolis-to-Bermuda Ocean sailboat races.

Survivors include his wife of 28 years, Sallye Perrin; daughters Dianna von Briesen of Phoenix, Maryland, and Maria Hardison of Rockville, Maryland, from his first marriage to Joanna Raptis von Briesen; stepdaughter Avendui Lacovara of Baltimore, Maryland; and three grandchildren, Melina Hardison of Rockville, Maryland; Andrew Lacovara of San Francisco, California; and Dexter Lacovara of Baltimore, Maryland.

A funeral service will be held at 11 a.m. on November 21st at the Basilica Oratory at Corpus Christi, at the corner of Mt. Royal and Lafayette Avenues. A reception will follow at the MICA Main Building. In keeping with John’s love of trains, the family suggests that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made to the National Museum of Railroad History & Innovation (https://nationalrailroad.org) or the Friends of the Stewartstown Railroad, Inc. (https://stewartstownfriends.org).