The Washington, Brandywine & Point Lookout Railroad (WB&PL) (originally, the Southern Maryland Railroad) was an American railroad that operated in southern Maryland and Washington, D.C., from 1918 to 1942. It and other, shorter-lived entities used the right-of-way from 1883 to 1965. The single-track line connected Mechanicsville, Maryland, to the Pennsylvania Railroad in Brandywine. Most of the rail was constructed by the Southern Maryland Railroad, which also built a section of track in East Washington that was intended to connect with this line but never did. The WB&PL was later acquired by the Navy, which extended the line to Cedar Point and the Patuxent Naval Air Station. In 1962, the Pennsylvania Railroad constructed a spur from Hughesville, Maryland to the Chalk Point Generating Station. During the 1960s and 1970s, the section from Hughesville to Cedar Point was abandoned and removed, and this area has since been repurposed for a highway, roads, a utility corridor, and a bike trail. The section from Brandywine to Hughesville, extending to Chalk Point, remains in use, though infrequently, as the plant ceased using coal in 2022.
History
Southern Maryland Railroad Planning for a railroad to Point Lookout started in 1866.
The Southern Maryland Railroad (SMR) was incorporated on March 20, 1868, “for the purpose of constructing, maintaining, and working a railroad from some point in Prince George’s County to Point Lookout.” The planned right-of-way ran along the peninsula created by two rivers: the Potomac and Patuxent. The company's founders hoped that a rail line from the major north-south Potomac River crossings into Virginia near Washington, D.C., to a port on the Patuxent River near the Chesapeake Bay would spur agricultural and mineral businesses on the peninsula.
The company quickly set its sights on running into Washington, D.C.
In 1872, the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad (B&P) began work on its mainline to Pope's Creek and this motivated work on grading the rail which started in the spring of that year. Prior to that only work being done was surveying and fund-raising. That same year a competitor railroad, the Washington City and Point Lookout Railroad was incorporated and the following year authorized to run trains between Washington, D.C., and Point Lookout with connecting steamers to Norfolk, Virginia. It would be a thorn in the SMR's side though the only rail it would build was the Alexandria Extension. By mid-1873, the SMR had built 30 miles of roadbed from the B&P at Brandywine to St. Joseph's Church in Morganza and 12 miles north from Point Lookout. Work was delayed by the Panic of 1873. SMR officials frequently promised to complete the work, but had laid down no rails or ties when it was forced into receivership in 1875. In 1876, the SMR was investigated for defrauding the state of Maryland, the sole shareholder in the company.
In 1874, the U.S. Naval Board reported that Point Lookout, with its key location and deep water, would be a good location for a coaling station. The Navy also thought that the railroad, paired with a steamer, could cut the travel time between Washington and Norfolk by six hours. The Navy thus supported a bill that would guarantee the SMR a payment if they completed the railroad, but it never passed. Nonetheless the promise of a guaranteed customer if the line could be completed drew the frequent attention of other railroaders.
In 1878, the WC&PL was authorized to purchase the SMR but never did.
In March 1881, the railroad began to lay track from Brandywine where it would connect with the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad (later the Pope's Creek branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad). The WC&PL also broke ground on its rail line to Point Lookout in 1881 and, like the SMR, it started at a connection with the Baltimore and Potomac at Brandywine. The two started work at almost the exact same time and their two roads were no more than 100 feet apart. At this point both companies had graded separated routes from Point Lookout to California, MD; but only the SMR had graded the road from California to Brandywine and so they were laying track faster. When it came time for the WC&PL to issue more bonds to continue the work, a rumor that the SMR had secured a larger loan than the WC&PL scared off the WC&PL's English investors. The WC&PL formed an alliance with the B&O, but their plans were scuttled by company President John W. Garrett. Years later when it became clear that the endeavor was hopeless the rails and ties, which had sat in piles in Brandywine, were reallocated to the building of the Chesapeake Beach Railway.
Over the next couple of years the SMR graded the railroad all the way to Esperanza (located on the Patuxent just downstream from the current Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge) and laid track to Mechanicsville. Trains began running between Brandywine and Mechanicsville in 1883. At that time the railroad was still planning to build a line from Benning to Brandywine, to extend the line to Point Lookout and to build a spur off the mainline to Esperanza just across from Solomon's Island.
In 1882, the Southern was finally granted permission to enter the District of Columbia. Work began on grading that 2.2 mile rail line from Benning via Deanwood in 1884 and some track was laid by 1885. By 1886, the railroad had laid down ties and some rail in D.C., but it never operated trains on this section, which later came under control of the Chesapeake Beach Railway.
In 1885, having spent extensive money on construction but putting into operations only the lightly used line between Brandywine and Mechanicsville, the railroad went into default and in 1886 it was forcibly sold for $75,000 to a syndicate of Boston investors, who reincorporated it as the Washington & Potomac Railroad Company.
Washington & Potomac Railroad The Southern Maryland Railroad was eventually sold to a new company called the Washington & Potomac Railroad (W&P) on April 1, 1886, and trains continued to run until the end of 1889 when a fire destroyed the roundhouse, engines and rolling stock. A lawyer from New York, working with the WC&PL, received permission from the underlying land owners to build another line on the same route and began running trains on the repaired W&P tracks but was stopped by an injunction brought by the legal owners of the W&P. After a lengthy 1892 court case, the WC&PL lost and was placed into receivership under control of the W&P. The WC&PL was sold at public auction in 1895 for $2500.
The WC&PL continued as an entity, owning land in the District of Columbia as late as 1935, but it was done running trains or building rail.
The W&P was unable to expand the rail line in any direction due to lack of funding and a constant need to extend the deadline to complete the road to Point Lookout. Competing railroads, like the Washington and Seaboard Railroad which was chartered in 1898 to build a line from Hyattsville to Point Lookout, fought efforts to get extensions and tried to undermine funding. After their attempt to get an extension on the deadline was killed by the Maryland House in March of 1900, the Union Trust Company foreclosed on the railroad, it was put in receivership and then forcibly auctioned off on the steps of courthouse in Upper Marlboro in July for $100,000.
Washington, Potomac & Chesapeake Railway After the Washington and Potomac was sold, there were many people interested in acquiring its assets and trying to connect it to Point Lookout and its strategic location and deep water, included a group headed by John Prentiss Poe and John's sons Edgar A. Poe and Johnny Poe. But the group that secured the company in 1901, composed of Philadelphia capitalists called their corporation the Washington, Potomac & Chesapeake Railway(WP&CR). John P. Poe, a lawyer, represented parties in several cases involving the rail line and eventually became a director of the WP&CR.
They quickly set to exerting their control over the tracks the SMR had built in the District, beginning ejectment hearings against the Chesapeake Beach Railway in 1902. In 1898, the CBR took possession of this section of railway, presumably via a tax auction and used it for its operation, ejecting the W&P in 1901. The case went to the Supreme Court and in 1905 WP&CR won and took title to the railway. The CBR then stopped running on the DC section of the railway, instead stopping at the train station in Seat Pleasant called District Line. In 1911, the CBR started leasing the District section of the line and continued until the WP&CR went out of business in 1918. At that point they purchased the section.
In 1903, the WP&CR sought to revive the SMR's rights to enter the District.
In 1905, the railroad started acquiring right-of-way to extend the railroad to Esperanza, where the Navy was considering a base across from Drum Point, but no work was ever done.
In November 1909, the railroad went into foreclosure and was purchased by Henry Winfield Watson who brought in Edgar A. and John P. Poe and the new owners again planned to extend the railroad to Esperanza. Watson tried to extend the rail line, but money from French investors fell through in 1911 and again in 1912 because of the war in Turkey. Owners of the competing Washington and Tidewater railroad, tried to get the state to force Watson to either build more rail or allow them to - as under Maryland law he was required to build 5 miles of rail by November 1914. For years afterward, residents of St. Mary's County and owners of other chartered railroads tried to get the WP&CR's charter revoked as there was still interest in completing the line or a parallel one.
The railroad was eventually sold to a New York corporation that was then dissolved. On December 31, 1917 the railroad was shut down and the company began removing the track, about a half mile of it, for scrap due to the high price of scrap metal during World War I. Maryland's senators then called on the U.S. government to buy the railroad to keep it from being removed, arguing that it had a critical national defense purpose. When that failed, Rep. Syd Mudd had the government cancel the contracts to buy the scrap metal from the new owners and had the court intervene to prevent their removal.
Washington, Brandywine & Point Lookout Railroad
After it was shut down and nearly scrapped in 1918, a new company, the Washington, Brandywine & Point Lookout Railroad was formed to purchase it. That company, owned by locals along the line, was unable to raise the full amount needed so the federal government lent them $50,000, on the grounds of military necessity and on the condition that the government would oversee and supervise operations of the railroad. The purchase was completed in July 1918. By 1919, trains were running again, using a gasoline engine for passengers and a steam engine for freight.
In November 1921, work began on expanding the line to Hollywood and then to Esperanza with a spur off the main line south of California, where they hoped to gain access to an important freight terminal, and then later to Point Lookout. The work was made easier because much of the route had been surveyed and graded in the 1880's. They had hoped to reach Hollywood by the summer of 1922, but work stalled and the extension only made it as far as Forrest Hall, where a new station opened in 1926. Rains in August 1928 caused three washouts, which halted service for two months. In that same year, the railroad ended passenger service because it was no longer profitable. The railroad helped carry material for building the paved highway (which brought more competition from trucks), schools and repairing the military school in Charlotte Hall and also pulp, wood, lumber and farm products outbound and merchandise, fertilizer, machinery and gasoline inbound.