The Northern Virginia trolleys were the network of electric streetcars that moved people around the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., from 1892 to 1941. At its peak, the network consisted of six lines that connected Rosslyn, Great Falls, Bluemont, Mount Vernon, Fairfax, Camp Humphries, and Nauck, with two of the lines crossing the Potomac River into Washington, D.C.Multiple sources: Washington—Virginia Railway system map (c. 1915). Washington—Virginia Railway Company (publisher). In
1900 map of Alexandria County, Virginia (now Arlington County), showing the routes of the Washington, Arlington & Falls Church Railway and the Washington, Alexandria & Mt. Vernon Electric Railway: Circa 1907 map of Alexandria County, Virginia (now Arlington County), showing the routes of the Washington, Alexandria and the Mt. Vernon Railway (W. A. & Mt V. Ry.) and the Washington, Arlington & Falls Church Railway (W. A. & F. C. Ry.): 1938 Alexander Gross street and rail map of Arlington and vicinity in J. A. Weyraugh Document Collection in Accessed April 24, 2009.
Two companies were founded in 1892: the Washington, Arlington and Falls Church Railway Company and the Washington, Arlington and Mount Vernon Railway. A number of communities developed along their routes. In 1910, they merged into the Washington-Virginia Railway. Its major lines converged at Arlington Junction, in the northwest corner of present-day Crystal City south of the Pentagon, and in Rosslyn at the south end of the Aqueduct Bridge, near today's Francis Scott Key Bridge.Multiple sources: 1900 map of Alexandria County, Virginia (now Arlington County), showing the routes of the Washington, Alexandria & Mt. Vernon Electric Railway near Arlington Junction: Circa 1907 map of Alexandria County, Virginia (now Arlington County), showing the routes of the Washington, Alexandria and the Mt. Vernon Railway (W. A. & Mt V. Ry.) and the Washington, Alexandria and Mt. Vernon Railway (W. A. & Mt V. Ry.) near Arlington Junction: Harwood, pp. 37-38. From Arlington Junction, the W-V's trolleys crossed the Potomac River near the site of the present 14th Street bridges and traveled to a terminal in downtown Washington on a site that is now near the Federal Triangle Metro station. The W-V entered receivership in 1922, was split into two companies in 1927, and stopped operating trolleys by 1939.
A third company and its successors operated electric cars from 1906 to 1912 as the Great Falls and Old Dominion Railroad; then from 1912 to 1941 as the Washington and Old Dominion Railway and the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad.Harwood, pp. 37-38, 79-81. One of the company's branches terminated in Georgetown at a station on the west side of the Georgetown Car Barn after crossing the Potomac from Rosslyn over the Aqueduct Bridge. After 1923, the branch no longer crossed into D.C.;Harwood, pp. 68-69. instead, Washington streetcars crossed the river on the new Francis Scott Key Bridge to a turnaround loop in Rosslyn.Merriken, pp. 61-63.
After early success, the trolleys struggled. They were unable to set their own prices and found it difficult to compete with automobiles and buses as roads were paved and improved. Much of the system was shut down in 1932 after the trolleys lost their direct connection to Washington, D.C., and the last trolley ran in 1941.
Most of what remains of the network was affiliated with the Washington and Old Dominion Railway, whose right-of-ways have mostly become trails and parks, parts of I-66, and Old Dominion Drive.Multiple sources: Harwood, pp. 108-112.
Description and map of W&OD Trail in NVRPA "Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park" marker at trailhead of W&OD Trail in Shirlington in Arlington County, Virginia. See photographs and description of the marker in In
Alexandria Passenger Railway Before the electric trolleys, there was the horsecar line of the Alexandria Passenger Railway (APR), which served Alexandria, Virginia, for just over a year in the 1870s. Starting on July 12, 1873, the APR ran two horse-drawn cars on tracks from the Ferry Wharf, west on King Street and then south on Peyton Street to the old stone bridge over Hooff's Run. The company failed and the railway shut down on September 4, 1874. Several other enterprises to run passenger rail in Alexandria were launched and abandoned over the next couple of decades.Merriken, p. 3.
Washington-Virginia Railway
For 15 years, the Washington-Virginia Railway (W-V Railway) controlled two of the three electric railways in Northern Virginia, along with its own Alexandria and Suburban Motor Vehicle Company (A&S). The W-V was chartered in 1910 to operate an electric line from Bluemont to Vienna, which it never did. Instead, in that same year it took control of the Washington, Alexandria, and Mount Vernon Electric Railway and the Washington, Arlington and Falls Church Railways.
A 1912 merger with the Washington Utilities Company was reversed the following year by federal regulators, and the latter company shut down.
Rosslyn, Mount Vernon and Camp Humphreys lines
Washington-Mount Vernon line
History Washington, Alexandria, and Mount Vernon Electric Railway
In 1890, the Alexandria and Fairfax Passenger Railway was chartered to provide a faster way to reach Mount Vernon than the steamboats that had been used since Mount Vernon opened to the public three decades earlier. In 1892, it changed its name to the Washington, Alexandria, and Mount Vernon Electric Railway and began operating between Alexandria and Mount Vernon.. Desiring to become an interurban railroad, it updated its charter and extended the line to Rosslyn in 1896. Along that extension it reached a point called Arlington Junction on the towpath of the abandoned Alexandria Canal near the present-day corner of S. Eads and S. 12th Streets in Arlington where it also built tracks to the 1872 Long Bridge allowing access to Washington, D.C. Once across the Long Bridge, it first used the Belt Line Street Railway Company's old horsecar tracks to reach a station on 14th Street NW in downtown. A year later, it tore those tracks out and replaced them with ones that allowed for underground power. Service to DC began in May 1896 and a few months later to Rosslyn. When the Rosslyn extension opened in July 1896, it was the longest electric streetcar line in the world.
In 1902, the railroad moved its station, as the Belt Line's tracks were circling the block containing the site of a planned new District Building (now the John A. Wilson Building). The new station at 1204 Pennsylvania Avenue NW extended along Pennsylvania Avenue NW, and D Street, NW, from 12th Street, NW, to Street, NW, near the site of the present Federal Triangle Metro station and on the opposite side of 12th Street from the Old Post Office building. Advertisement in "Industrial and Historical Sketch of Fairfax County, Virginia". Some Old Historic Landmarks of Virginia and Maryland, Described in a Hand-book for the Tourist Over the Washington, Alexandria and Mount Vernon Electric Railway.Washington-Virginia Railway Co. timetable in . In May of that year, the tracks between Arlington Junction and Four Mile Run were doubled to allow for storing rush hour cars during the day.
In 1903 they built a loop around the block bounded by King, Fairfax, Prince and Royal in Alexandria to allow trains in either direction to turn around.
In 1905, to accommodate the construction of a new City Hall on the site of the Capital Traction Company's former power house, which had burned to the ground in 1897, the railway terminal was moved from 13 1/2 Street and E to 12th and D, NW. That same year, the double tracking of the line was extended south to Alexandria and included the bridge over Four Mile Run.
In 1906, the 1872 Long Bridge's streetcar tracks and road were moved to the Highway Bridge, a new truss bridge immediately west of the older bridge. This span was removed in 1967.
By 1906, the railway had transported 1,743,734 passengers along its routes with 92 daily runs. The route became known as the "Road of the Presidents." Passengers and others could read a 122-page Hand-book for the Tourist Over the Washington, Alexandria and Mount Vernon Electric Railway that described in detail the railway's routes and stations as well as the landmarks, history and geography of the area through which the railway traveled.
In 1907 they finished work on a new terminal at Mt. Vernon. Located near the present entrance, it was a large building with a large restaurant that offered al fresco dining on the balcony. That same year, the Union Passenger Depot opened on the west end of Alexandria with the Mt. Vernon passing beneath it at viaduct and small spur was built to the west, which was removed in 1910.
Washington-Virginia Railway
In 1910, the Washington, Alexandria, and Mount Vernon Electric Railway merged with the Washington, Arlington & Falls Church Railway, which was under the control of the Washington-Virginia Railway.
The rise of the automobile, bad decisions, and economic hard times would lead to the demise of the railway.
In early 1918, a year after the U.S. entered World War I, the Army created Camp Humphreys to train engineers. At the time the only way to reach it was by boat so in July the railway, via a separate corporation named the Mount Vernon and Camp Humphries Railway (chartered with this misspelling), agreed to build a 5-mile extension to the camp. Money was forwarded to them by the War Department and the U.S. Railroad Administration and they purchased 49 new cars with it. While they originally planned to finish the work in 60 days, they were only able to build about 4 miles, and only electrify a few hundred feet, before they ran out of financing. Meanwhile, a standard gauge railroad connection from the Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac Railroad opened in July and the Richmond-Washington Highway was paved in October, reducing the need for the electric rail. When the war ended on Nov 11, 1918, the incentive to invest in the line largely disappeared and, as a result, the line sat disused for years. At the end of 1920, the US Government cut a deal to finish the line and operate service on it, paying rent to the streetcar with an option to buy it. By that time the company was already reorganizing. During the spring of 1921, troops at the engineering school finished the line. The corps of engineers bought a single yellow, Brill-Mack rail gasoline rail car and trailer and ran the line for about a year, before stopping service because it was too costly. The project left the railway with a million dollars of debt. The debt, competition from automobiles resulting from the paving of the highway and the construction of new roads, led the company into receivership in 1923. The next year it ended all freight operations, as that had lost money for years. It continued to operate in receivership until 1927.
In early 1925, Robert L. May received a charter to operate a bus line between Washington and Alexandria. Prior to that the W-V railway had formed the Alexandria and Suburban Motor Vehicle Company (A&S) to run buses between Alexandria, Potomac Yard and the Virginia Theological Seminary. At the time, many correctly predicted that it would lead to the end of the Washington-Virginia railway, though the A&S was given permission to go to Washington 10 months later.
Mount Vernon, Alexandria and Washington Railway
In 1927, the two railways were separated and sold at auction, the Washington-Mount Vernon line (AKA the Mount Vernon Division) becoming the Mount Vernon, Alexandria and Washington Railway. At the same time the A&S was sold to the Alexandria, Barcroft and Washington (AB&W) Transit Company.