From: M00209@MBVM.Mitre.Org
Newsgroups: rec.railroad
Subject: Re: Washington DC question
Date: 16 Apr 92 18:28:51 GMT
Article-I.D.: MBVM.167CBBDA5.M00209
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, Bedford MA 01730

In article <12190@ns-mx.uiowa.edu>
jones@pyrite.cs.uiowa.edu (Douglas W. Jones,201H MLH,3193350740,3193382879) writes:
 
>
>Yesterday, I took the Washington Metro from the end of the line in
>Alexandria Virginia to National Airport (so I could get back to Iowa).
>I think it was the yellow line?  Anyway, my questions have to do with
>what I saw out the window on the trip.
>
>The Metro line I was on parallels a number of railroad tracks for a
>good part of the distance it travels.  Looking West (I think) out
>of the Metro car I was in, we passed a string of nicely painted
>RFP diesels (Richmond, Fredricksburgh and Potomac?)  We also passed
>a large yard area that looked like it had once seen better times, and
>my primary questions surround the structures in that yard.
 
Yes, you're right except for a minor spelling error.  The tracks that the
Metro parallels belong(ed) to the RF&P - Richmond, Fredericksburg & Potomac.
They are used also by Amtrak and Norfolk Southern.  The RF&P within the last
few months has been absorbed into CSX - CSX previously also used the track by
virtue of C&O trackage rights over Southern which has trackage rights over the
RF&P from the RF&P (now CSX) / SR (now NS) junction (whose name I forget) south
of Alexandria Station.  The Amtrak Alexandria Station is alongside the Metro's
King Street Station, adjacent to the George Washington Masonic Memorial in
downtown Alexandria.
>
>The yard contained a number of grey painted I-beams that pointed up and
>sometimes angled over.  They looked like they could become or could have
>been catenary supports.  The grey-painted ones looked fairly new, and
>that makes me wonder -- are these part of an attempt to extend the
>North East Corridor electrification across the Potomac, or are they the
>remains of an old extension across the Potomac that must have seen some
>maintenance after the 1960's to get that kind of I-beam used for catenary
>support.
 
As others have already mentioned, Potomac Yard was the principal freight
classification yard for the D.C. area and the "Gateway to the South" until
very recent times.  It is now almost totally abandoned.  I believe that the
Pennsy owned (and that therefore Conrail still owns) the track across the
Potomac River from D. C. and up to the Yard.  (The "property line may be at
the River rather than at Potomac Yard.)  Someone mentioned I think that
the Pennsy ran electrically-powered freight through Capitol Hill Tunnel and
thence into the Yard.  Not so!  The freight trains used (and still do use) a
bypass route from someplace I forget exactly where north of Union Station to
Virginia Tower on the elevated structure between the Tunnel and the Potomac
River.  I doubt that any freight was ever run (on a normal basis) through the
Capitol Hill Tunnel.  This Tunnel is also the reason why dome cars cannot be
operated on the NY-FL trains (at least north of Alexandria), though Southern
at one time had some very low domes that could and did go through the Tunnel.
 
In pre-Amtrak days, when Pennsy owned the corridor, they found it economical
and practical to haul freight with electric locomotives.  I recall the P5's
and the P5a's, later GG1's and E44's.  I guess the ex-VGN locomotives probably
saw service here as well.  After Amtrak came along with their general desire to
get freight off the corridor, as implemented by high trackage rights charges,
high charges for electric power and restrictive rules on when and how fast
freight trains may operate, and for other reasons as well, Conrail decided to
discontinue operation of electric freight locomotives.  The result was the
removal of the catenary on this track.  The decline of freight on the Corridor
plus the high value of real estate so close to the Pentagon and National
Airport then caused RF&P to decide to get rid of Potomac Yard.  A major portion
of through freight now, as you no doubt know, flows through the Hagerstown
gateway rather than via DC.  But from the 30s until about 1980, electrically
operated freight trains into Potomac Yard were frequent and long.
 
Len Bachelder        Archives Committee, Boston and Maine RR Historical Society
MITRE Corp.           Secretary, Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts
Bedford MA 01730      Member, 470 Railroad Club
<M00209@mbvm.mitre.org>
 
"Amazing love, how can it be that Thou, my God, should'st die for me!"
                                                 - Charles Wesley
Newsgroups: rec.railroad