Washington & Old Dominion Footage

[Guilford Guy]

This popped up ont he yahoo interurbans list. Those in the delmarva area might enjoy it.

[Bob Bufkin]

The W&OD is nowhere near Delmarva although I'm sure it's of interest to them.  It ran out of D.C.  There are still remnants of this in VA.  Some of the current Metro run on right-of-way once used by the W&OD.  When I first came to the D.C. area there was still a lot of track in place including a bridge over the beltway in VA but it's long gone now.  Interesting little railroad which also ran streetcars in its heyday.  Alway thought that if it had hung around it would have made a good commuter line, especially now that there is a ton of housing and businesses where there used to be nothing but woods.

[Guilford Guy]

Oops! I'm a yankee and read delmarva as all inclusive in regards to DE, MD, and VA. My sister once lived in Rosslyn so I've seen parts of the ROW. When did they take down the wire? I'm pretty sure I've seen pictures of W&OD 70 tonners in the 60s.

[Virginia Atlantic]

W&OD ran from Potomac Yard vincinity in Alexandria VA, out the west corridor through Viena, Herndon, etc, out to around Bluemont, close to the VA/WVA border in NW VA.

The road was turned into two things post-end-of-service.  The inner part, in Arlington County, was mostly razed as a part of the constuction of Interstate 66 and the WMATA Metrorail.  The outlying parts (from inside Arlington well out to the west) was converted into the Washington & Old Dominion RR Bike Trail.  It's a nice trail, imo.

Tis a shame though, a rail right-of-way from Alexandria thru to almost West VA would be worth more than gold in traffic clogged NoVA these days. 

For any interested in this small, rather unimportant road (That I love), I would suggest the following book: