page_title: Washington and Old Dominion Railroad
section_title: Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Washington and Old Dominion Railroad / Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Herndon Depot This is an image of a place or building that is listed on the National Register of Historic Places in the United States of America. Its reference number is 79003039
context_page_description: The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, the successor to the bankrupt Washington and Old Dominion Railway, was an intrastate short-line railroad located in Northern Virginia. Its oldest line extended from Alexandria on the Potomac River northwest to Bluemont at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Snickers Gap, not far from the boundary line between Virginia and West Virginia. The railroad's route largely paralleled the routes of the Potomac River and the present Virginia State Route 7.
  The line followed the winding course of Four Mile Run upstream from Alexandria through Arlington to Falls Church. At that point, the railroad was above the Fall Line and was able to follow a more direct northwesterly course in Virginia through Dunn Loring, Vienna, Sunset Hills, Herndon, Sterling, Ashburn, Leesburg, Paeonian Springs, Hamilton, Purcellville and Round Hill to its terminus at Bluemont, turning sharply to the west only after passing through Clarke's Gap in Catoctin Mountain west of Leesburg. A branch connected the line to Rosslyn.
context_section_description: The Virginia highway department retained the section of the railroad's route that crossed the Henry G. Shirley Memorial Highway along the Arlington-Alexandria boundary and the portion of the route in Arlington immediately east of Falls Church, on which it built I–66. WMATA then constructed a part of Washington Metro's Orange Line within the median strip of I-66 on that portion of the railroad's former route.
  In 1977, VEPCO agreed to sell to the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (NVRPA) (now NOVA Parks) for $3.6 million the portion of its right-of-way that lay west of the Alexandria/Arlington boundary. The NVRPA then incorporated that portion of the right-of-way into its Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park, within which it constructed the W&OD Trail. NVRPA completed the trail to Purcellville in 1988.
  In 1999, Virginia Department of Historic Resources staff determined that the "Washington and Old Dominion Railroad Historic District" was eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).  A 2000 NRHP registration form states that the Historic District is eligible for the listing because the District "is associated with events that have made a significant contribution to the broad patterns of our history". The form contains an in-depth description of the District's historical resources and of the railroad's history, as well as maps that show the locations of the Districts's major historical features.
  On June 18, 1979, the Heritage Conservation and Recreation Service of the United States Department of the Interior added the Herndon depot to the NRHP. On May 28, 2010, the National Park Service added the Purcellville train station to the NRHP. The Virginia Department of Historic Resources has added both stations to the Virginia Landmarks Register.
caption: Herndon Depot, August 2012
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