District of Columbia Network
Early Transit in Washington
Public transportation began in Washington, DC almost as soon as the city was founded. In May of 1800 two-horse stage coaches began operation from Bridge and High Streets (now Wisconsin and M Street) in Georgetown by way of M Street and Pennsylvania Avenue to William Tunnicliff's Tavern at the site now occupied by the Supreme Court Building. They ran twice a day, but service ended soon after it began.[1]
Not until the spring of 1830, was another attempt made at public transit. Omnibuses, horse-drawn wagons, began running from Georgetown to the Navy Yard. These were later extended down 11th St SE to the waterfront and up 7th to L St. Other omnibus lines were added under different companies, but by 1854 all omnibuses had come under the control of two companies, "The Union Line" and "The Citizen's Line." These two merged, under the control of Gilbert Vanderwerken and continued to operate until they were run out of business by the new technology - streetcars.[1]
Horse Drawn Streetcars
Streetcars began operation in Baltimore in 1828. The technology spread across the country and around the world, improving along the way. By the time the first lines opened in the city of Washington in 1862, the horse drawn streetcar was a mature technology.
The Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company (W&G) was the first of many streetcar companies in Washington. It was chartered on May 17, 1862[2] and was authorized to build three street horsecar lines using the standard track gauge of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad[2].
The first streetcar line installed ran on Pennsylvania Avenue from Georgetown to the Washington Navy Yard and began operation on July 29, 1862. Two other lines, built along 7th Street and 14th Street were completed by November 15, 1862. The system was so successful, that the initial three lines were extended and new lines were built.
In 1865, Sojourner Truth successfully led the fight to allow blacks to ride freely on Washington's streetcars. The streetcars were one of the few places in Washington free from racial segregation.
After switching to cable cars in 1890 it was acquired by the Rock Creek Railway in 1895 and the new company was named the Capital Traction Company.
In 1897 Capital Traction built the Georgetown Car Barn ("Capital Traction Company" is still written above the main door).
Remnants of the line
- The Georgetown Car Barn at 3600 M Street, NW. Like the East Capital Street Car Barn it was designed by Waddy B. Wood. The "Exorcist Steps" were built as part of the car barn's construction. They connect Prospect Street to M Street. The building is now owned by Douglas Development and leased to Georgetown University.
- The facade of the Washington & Georgetown car barn at 3222 M Street, NW, now the main entrance to The Shops at Georgetown Park The car barn was previously the stables for Gilbert Vanderwerken's omnibus line. It was purchased by the Washington & Georgetown line and used first as stables.
- The "Blue Castle" or Navy Yard Car Barn at 770 M Street, SE. It's now the home of the KEY Academy, Washington Math Science Technology Public Charter School, and the Eagle Academy. See photo on this page. The building was purchased in January 2006 by Preferred Real Estate Investments who intend to change its color and turn it into retail space. Further information in Washington Post story.
Metropolitan Railroad Company Incorporated in 1864. Its first line ran from the Capitol to the War Department via F Street, NW. Later lines ran along Connecticut Ave; 7th St, NW; E. Capitol St; from Dupont Circle to Georgetown via the P Street Bridge and along O & P Streets in Georgetown. In 1896 Metropolitan built the Waddy B. Wood designed East Capitol Street Car Barn and in 1899 merged with the Washington Traction and Electric Company, which quickly went bankrupt. It was then purchased by the Washington Railway and Electric Company.
Remnants of the line
- The East Capitol Street (or Lincoln Park) Car Barn at 1400 East Capitol Street, NE, now a condominium.
- Visible train tracks in the center of O and P Streets in Georgetown
Columbia Railway Company Founded in 1870. It started operations in 1872 at New York Avenue NW and 15th St NW, and ran east along New York Avenue NW to K Street NW, along K Street NW t o Massachusetts Avenue NW, along Massachusetts Avenue NW to H Street, NW, and along H Street to Benning Road NE (formerly Columbia Pike). On October 28, 1895, it converted to a cable car system. In 1898, the route was extended out Benning Road, NE, to the Deanwood neighborhood. This extension was built as an electric line, and in 1899, the rest of the cable car line was converted to electricity. From Deanwood, passengers could transfer to the Chesapeake Beach Railroad or the Washington, Baltimore and Annapolis Railroad both of which stopped at Seat Pleasant just outside the District. It eventually became part of the Washington Railway and Electric Company.
Anacostia and Potomac River Railroad Company
Incorporated in 1872. In 1875, it constructed a streetcar line across the Anacostia River. The line ran from 7th Street and M Street SW, along M Street and 11th across the Navy Yard Bridge (now the 11th Street Bridge) to Uniontown (now historic Anacostia). The route then ran down Nichols Avenue (now Martin Luther King Avenue) to V Street SE. A car barn and stables were maintained by the company at Nichols Avenue and V Street SE. It eventually became part of the Washington Railway and Electric Company.
Capitol, North O Street and South Washington Railway Company Incorporated and opened in 1875. It operated streetcar lines primarily on NW 4th St. and NW 11th St. In 1893 it was renamed the Belt Railway Company, and in 1899 it was acquired by the Anacostia and Potomac River Railroad Company. See a photo here.
These lines were later converted to electric operation. The last horsecar ran on May 26, 1900.
The Switch to Electric Power
Underground power conduits were a problem because the plow would get jammed in the winter by snow and ice. In the summer the conduits swelled shut. [3] Eckington and Soldiers’ Home Railway Company
The first electric streetcar in D.C. was run by the Eckington and Soldiers' Home Railway. It was chartered on June 19, 1888 and started operation later that year. It started at 7th & New York Ave. NW, east of Mount Vernon Square and traveled a distance of 2 ½ miles to the Eckington Car barn at 4th and T NE via Boundary Street, Eckington Place, R Street, 3rd and T Street. A one week pass cost $1.25. In 1889 it was extended to Glenwood Cemetery and in 1895 to Soldiers' Home. The Glenwood Cemetery extension was shut down in 1894. In 1898, it merged with the City and Suburban Railway.
Remnants of the line
- The Eckington Car Barn at T Street, NE, between 4th and 5th Streets; now a postal facility
Brightwood Railway Company On October 18, 1888, Congress authorized the Brightwood Railway Company to build a streetcar line on Georgia Avenue (then known as Seventh Street Extended or Brightwood Avenue) from Boundary Street to the District line at Silver Spring. Four of the five founders were partners in the Petworth subdivision, including the line's president, A. A. Thomas.
The Metropolitan Railroad Company had run a horse-drawn line on Georgia Avenue to Rock Creek Church Road since about 1873. The Metropolitan was authorized to run the streetcar line all the way to the District boundary, but the area was sparsely developed and the horsedrawn cars offered a long, slow trip to and from the city. Business was slow. So the Brightwood Railway Company bought the Metropolitan's Georgia Avenue line in 1890 and electrified it. Because all wiring in the city was required to be underground the line used storage battery cars. Maximum fare was 5 cents/passenger or 6 tickets for 25 cents.
The Brightwood line was extended to Takoma Park in 1892. In 1895 the Washington, Woodside and Forest Glen Railway and Power Company was organized to carry the Brightwood line into Montgomery County.
Remnants of the line
- The Brightwood Car Barn, 5929 Georgia Avenue, NW; parts were incorporated into Curtis Chevrolet
Georgetown and Tenallytown Railway Company The Georgetown and Tenallytown Railway Company was chartered in 1888 and had electric lines running along Wisconsin Avenue to the District line in 1890. In 1897, the line merged with the Tenallytown and Rockville Railroad, which ran to Alta Vista and Rockville. Together they formed the Washington and Rockville Electric Railway Company. The new company was purchased by the Washington Railway and Electric Company in 1902. In 1935, it converted to buses.
Rock Creek Railway Starting in 1890 it ran between the Cardoza/Shaw neighborhood and Chevy Chase Lake in Maryland. It started at 7th & Boundary Street, traveled east on Florida, U Street, north on 18th Street, west on Calvert Street, and north on Connecticut Avenue to Chevy Chase Lake. It was built by the Chevy Chase Land Company, whose principal owner was Francis G. Newlands. On September 21, 1895, the Rock Creek Railway acquired the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company. The new company was named the Capital Traction Company.
Remnants of the line
- The Decatur Street Car Barn at 4701 14th Street, NW. Also known as the Capital Traction Company Car Barn, it is now a Metrobus barn.
City and Suburban Railway The City and Suburban Railway was chartered in 1890 to run a streetcar from just east of the White House at New York Ave and 15th St NW to what is now Mount Rainier on the D.C. line. On March 31st, 1892 the Maryland and Washington Railway incorporated to build a rail line connecting any passenger railway in the District of Colmbia to Branchville and eventually Laurel
On April 4, 1896 The Maryland and Washigton, having difficulty raising money, merged with several other struggling streetcar companies to create the Columbia and Maryland Railway.
Meanwhile, the City and Suburban was laying down track, reaching Mount Rainier in 1897. In 1898 it merged with the Eckington & Soldiers Home Railroad. It continued building tracks, now into Maryland, reaching Brentwood in 1898; and Hyattsville and Riverdale in 1899.
The Columbia and Maryland renamed itself the Berwyn and Laurel Electric Railroad Company and started building tracks from the end of the City and Suburban in Riverdale to College Park and Laurel by 1902 - at which time it changed its name again, this time to the Washington, Berwyn and Laurel Electric Railroad Company.
Eventually, the City and Suburban took over control of the Washington, Berwyn and Laurel until it was itself absorbed by the Washington Railway and Electric Company. It had stops in the following cities.
The Washington & Great Falls Electric Railway Incorporated in 1892 and opened in 1895, The Washington & Great Falls Electric Railway began in Georgetown at 36th and Prospect Streets and ran in a private right-of-way along the lands of the Washington Aqueduct to Glen Echo and from there along the old tracks of the Glen Echo Railroad to Cabin John. Because the railroad never reached Great Falls, but instead terminated at Cabin John, it was often referred to as the "Cabin John Trolley". It was acquired in 1902 by the Washington Railway and Electric Company. The railway was dismantled in the 1960s, but the former roadbed is still discernable in The Palisades and in Montgomery County, Maryland. More details and photos are available at this website.
Remnants of the line in Washington, D.C.
- Trestle over Arizona Avenue, NW, between Dorsett Place and Sherier Place
- Trestle over Foundry Branch in Glover Archibald Park, near Georgetown University
Capital Railway Company The Capital Railway Company was the first electric railway line to cross the Anacostia. It was incorporated in 1895 and ran over the newly constructed bridge at Pennsylvania Avenue and along Nichols (now Martin Luther King) Avenue past St. Elisabeths. In 1900 it was sold to the Anacostia and Potomac River Railroad. By 1902, the streetcar line had been extended along Nichols Avenue to Congress Heights, ending at Upsal Street. In 1935 it was converted to buses.
The Baltimore and Washington Transit Company The B&W Transit Company was incorporate on April 7, 1896. In 1897, it began construction on an electric street railway system, known locally as the Dinky Line, that began at 4th and Butternut Streets, NE, traveled south on 4th to Aspen Street and then east on Laurel Street into Maryland. It continued on Ethan Allen Avenue to and eventually to the hugely popular Wildwood Resort and Glen Sligo Hotel on Sligo Creek, which would be about midway between Elm Avenue and Sligo Creek Parkway, on what is Heather Avenue today. In 1903, the Takoma Park city council took over the lease given by the B & W Transit Company and the resort was closed for illegal gambling. The tracks were removed some two years later and the right-of-way reverted to the town. In 1920, the hotel was torn down and the property subdivided into individual lots. In 1937, the tracks were completely dismantled.
The East Washington Heights Traction Railroad
Opened sometime after 1900 and ran on Pennsylvania Avenue, SE, across the Anacostia River on the bridge that was replaced by the John Philip Sousa Bridge. In 1923, it became the first streetcar in D.C. to convert to buses.
The Washington, Spa Spring and Gretta Railroad Company
Began in 1910 as a single-track trolley line. It ran from a car barn at 15th and H Street, NE in Washington along Bladensburg Road to Bladensburg. The line was initially planned to run as far as Gettysburg, Pennsylvania but service was only extended as far as Berwyn Heights (This happened in 1912 using battery cars). The line became the Washington Interurban Railway in 1912 and the Washington Interurban Railroad Company in 1916. In 1923 the streetcars were replaced by buses and the tracks removed when Bladensburg Road was paved.
The Reorganization Act
Washington Railway and Electric Company & Capital Traction Company In 1900, Congress passed the Reorganization Act. This paved the way for an extensive series of mergers and acquisitions, through which ownership of all streetcars in Washington was divided between two companies: the Washington Railway and Electric Company' and the Capital Traction Company. The Washington Railway and Electric Company had been formed in 1900 for just this purpose. The combined system reached its greatest size in 1915.
In 1916 local 689 of the Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway and Motor Coach Employees of America won recognition in Washington after a three day strike.[3]
In 1925, the North American Company acquired, through stock purchase, a controlling interest in the Washington Railway and Electric Company and a minority interest in Capital Traction. At about this time, the system (as in other cities) began to decline in quality and ridership because of competition from the private automobile and buses. At the time, streetcars were viewed by many as old fashioned, impractical and less desirable than buses. With the coming of the Depression, revenues and maintenance suffered. Unlike today, most transit systems were privately owned and received no government subsidy.
Remnants of WREC
Bustitution
Single Company Operations
In December of 1933, the Washington Railway and Electric Company and the Capital Traction merged, forming the Capital Transit Company. For the first time street railways in Washington were under the management of one company. On August 28, 1937 the new company initiated the first PCC streetcar in Washington on 14th Street. Over the next two years, the company would replace all cars with the PCC model.
The new company made other changes as well. In 1906 the Senate Subway was built. Three years later the Washington Post had called for a citywide subway to be built. Nothing happened until the 1930's when other papers pushed for streetcar tunneling. The full $35 million plan to depress streets as trenches for exclusive streetcar use never materialized, but on December 14, 1949, the Connecticut Avenue trolley stop and tunnel were built under Dupont Circle.[3]
At first, business was good for the new company. During World War II, gasoline rationing limited automobile use, but transit companies were exempt from the rationing. Meanwhile, wage freezes held labor costs in check. With increased revenue and steady costs, Capital Transit conservatively built up a $7 million cash reserve.[3]
In 1946, a decision by the United States Supreme Court in North American Company v. Security and Exchange Commission, the Supreme Court upheld the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 and forced the North American Company, because it also owned the Potomac Electric Power Company, to sell its shares of Capital Transit. Buyers were hard to come by, but on September 12, 1949, Louis Wolfson and his three brothers purchased from North American 46.5% of the company's stock for $20 per share.[4] For $2.2 million they bought a company with $7 million in cash. The Wolfson's began paying themselves huge dividends until in 1955 the war chest was down to $2.7 million. During the same period, transit trips dropped by 40,000 trips per day and automobile ownership doubled.[3]
Remnants of the system
- Connecticut Avenue tunnel under Dupont Circle and abandoned underground station
DC Transit
In January of 1955 the Capitol Transit Company, then consisting of 750 buses and 450 streetcars, [3] sought permission for a fare increase, but was denied. So that spring, when employees asked for a raise, there was no money available and the company refused to increase pay. Frustrated, employees went on strike on July 1, 1955. The strike, only the third in D.C. history and the first since a three day strike in 1945, lasted for seven weeks. Commuters were forced to hitch rides and walk in the brutal summer heat.[3]
On July 18, 1956, after Wolfson dared the Senate to revoke his franchise claiming no other entrepreneur would take the company on, the Congress did just that. Months later, the franchise was sold to O. Roy Chalk, a New York financier who owned controlling interest in Trans Caribbean Airways, for $13.5 million.[3] The company's name was changed to DC Transit and Chalk was required to replace the system with buses by 1963.[3] Chalk unsuccessfully fought the retirement of the streetcars[3].
The End of the Line
The final abandonment of the streetcar system began on September 7, 1958. Further abandonments were carried out on January 3, 1960, December 3, 1961, and finally January 28, 1962. Early on the morning of Sunday, January 28, 1962, preceded by cars 1101 and 1053, car 766 entered the Navy Yard Car Barn for the last time, and Washington's streetcars became history. [5]
The streetcars were sold off to various cities. 150 of the streetcars were sold to Barcelona where they were in service into the 1970's.[6] 200 more were sold to Sarajevo where they ran until the civil war.[7] 15 more went to Fort Worth, TX for use on the Tandy Center Subway until it shut down in 2002.[8]
Much of the trackage was removed or buried under streets. O and P streets. Right-of-way.
Carbarns and stations.
The most visible remnant of the streetcar system is the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) bus system. On January 14, 1973, WMATA purchased DC Transit and the Washington, Virginia and Maryland Coach Company (followed on February 4th by the purchase of AB&W Transit Company and WMA Trasit Company) unifying all the bus companies in DC.[9] Just as the horse cars had replaced carriages and the electric streetcar replaced horse cars, so too were the electric streetcars eventually replaced by buses. The backbone of WMATA's existing bus route map remains only marginally changed from the streetcars map it followed. For example, the #30 streetcar route that ran from Barney Circle to Friendship Heights is now the #30 bus line which runs from Anacostia through Barney Circle to Friendship Heights.
links
Notes
- ^ a b Tindall, Dr. William (1918). Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C.: Beginning of Street Railways in the National Capital. Charlottesville, VA: Columbia Historical Society. pp. 24–118.
{{cite book}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b "Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, 1861-1862". July 2, 1862. Retrieved 2006-12-04.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|1=(help) - ^ a b c d e f g h i j Schrag, Zachery M. (2006). The Great Society Subway: A History of the Washington Metro. Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press. pp. 27–31.
{{cite book}}: Check|authorlink=value (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help); External link in|authorlink= - ^ "Strike Against Wolfson". Time. 1955-07-18. Retrieved 2007-01-04.
{{cite news}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "NCTM: Washington, D.C. Street Car Scenes". Retrieved 2007-01-08.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Miklos, Frank (April–June 1997). "Barcelona" (PDF). Headlights: The Magazine of Electric Railways. 59 (4–6). Electric Railroaders Association, Inc: 8–9. Retrieved 2007-01-06.
{{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help)CS1 maint: date format (link) - ^ "DC Transit Company PCC Streetcar (1945)". The Virginia Museum of Transportation Inc. Retrieved 2007-01-07.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Post, Robert. "Fourteenth and G, Washington, D.C. 1941". Technology and Culture. 39.
{{cite journal}}:|access-date=requires|url=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ "Metro History" (PDF). WMATA. Retrieved 2007-01-07.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help)