Washington & Old Dominion

Company History: The W&OD was born in 1911 when the owners of the Great Falls & Old Dominion, an interurban line running from Rosslyn, Virginia (just over the Potomac from Washington D.C.) northwest to an amusement park in Great Falls, leased the old Washington & Ohio line from Southern Railway. The W&O line ran from Alexandria, Virginia northwest to Leesburg and Bluemont. A new connection had to be built from Rosslyn southwest to the W&O mainline and trolley wire was strung over most of the W&O line thus making the new Washington & Old Dominion an electric interurban line with a healthy freight business.

The advent of the automobile and the Depression brought big changes to the W&OD. The Great Falls line was abandoned as was the Bluemont end of the old W&O. In 1941, passenger service ended and the trolley wire came down. The line dieselized with switchers from GE and Whitcomb. The Second World War saw the return of passenger service thanks to secondhand gas-electric motorcars. W&OD bought the W&O line from Southern in 1945. Passenger service ended (again) in 1950 and W&OD settled into the role of a quaint Virginia shortline. In 1956, Chesapeake & Ohio bought the company with hopes that a new power plant would be built along the W&OD. The power plant was not built but W&OD continued to be profitable. They even moved construction materials for the new Dulles International Airport.

In 1962, the branch to Rosslyn was abandoned to make room for a highway right of way. This turned out to be harbinger of things to come. With the Washington D.C. metropolitan area quickly growing out of its original confines, W&OD applied to abandon the entire railroad so the rights of way could be sold for highways and power lines. The last train ran in 1968.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.