Category Archives: Prototype

Things to do with the Georgetown Branch prototype.

One Last Sunset

History, Model RR, News, Prototype
The Rock Creek Trestle, as it stands on January 16, 2019. The trestle is currently in the process of being demolished.
The Rock Creek Trestle, as it stands on January 16, 2019. The trestle is currently in the process of being demolished.

I spent all day Saturday visiting the Georgetown Branch to see some of the construction changes. It was a glorious day. Kelly R. and I found some amazing things. I took hundreds of photos. I’m planning many future blog posts.

The impetus for the journey was that I remembered that the Rock Creek trestle was going to be demolished to make way for a new grade for the purple line. I had no idea if it was already down, but Kelly and I headed over to the site. Much to my joy, it is still partially standing, although about 8 of the trestle bents are gone from the East end.

The venerable structure is not long for this world. Massive mobile cranes are staging nearby to remove the pedestrian path atop the trestle and on the west end, well, the original right of way has been completely decimated. It’s heartbreaking for me to see. This trestle has stood the test of time. Survived fire, flood, hurricane and countless storms and seasons. Since it’s original incarnation as a long wood trestle to what it is today, a bridge has spanned this valley since the early 1890s. It’s a beautiful structure and is showing its age, with rot starting to really take its toll.

I visited today after work to take some final measurements and as many photos as I could snag with the limited sunlight I had. It’s a special bridge for me. Something of wonder. If it’s of any consolation, it will live on in model form on my layout as best as I can manage.

Film of DC Transit at Dalecarlia

Georgetown Branch related links, History, News, Prototype

This neat video showing various railfan excursions from the 1950s to 1970s in the DC area shows a wide variety of subjects, including a brief, rare color film shot of the trolley approaching its crossing of the B&O’s Georgetown Branch, which crossed the trolley tracks on a deck girder bridge. The trolley last ran to Glen Echo on Jan 3, 1960 and the area beneath the bridge would be filled in later that year. (I walked the line back in 1991 and witnessed this deck girder bridge sitting only a few feet off the ground. It was a strange sight.)

Video begins at the 5:54 mark and is only a few seconds long, but it’s neat to see. In the background you can see the GB bridge crossing over the tracks. There was a second deck girder bridge to the left which extended the crossing.

River Road Metropolitan Fuel Co. Siding Survivor

History, News, Prototype

Another relic from the Georgetown Branch surfaces as a siding in Bethesda at River Road emerges from the brush.

Note the wheel blocks fastened to the rail so the cars would not roll off the end of the siding.

Eagle-eyed viewer, contributor and friend Rich Pearlman went exploring the area around the crossing at River Rd. and came across the tracks on the South side of the intersection. I had a sneaking suspicion there were tracks there as I had previously seen and photographed rails buried in the dirt but I hadn’t seen them listed/shown on the maps I have, nor do I have period photos of them.

Well, Rich did the heavy lifting, digging through the B&O Railroad Yahoo! Group site to uncover a comment from Christopher Parker outlining a brief history of that siding. Here is what he wrote:

The siding, which was quite long (more than 10 cars), once served Metropolitan Fuel Company, across the tracks. By 1980 it was grown over and disconnected from the main, but the pipes and connections for
unloading tank cars were all still present. Metropolitan Fuel Company was purchased by Stuart Petroleum along with next-door Washington Fuel
sometime in the early eighties.

A red wooden caboose sat on this siding all through the seventies. When I first got a look at it in the late seventies, it was quite abandoned and didn’t have a road name on it. Around 1982, give or take a few
years, it was damaged by fire.

In 1981 or 1982, this siding was re-connected and the first 100′ was used by Jack’s Roofing Co to unload Cedar Shingles. They’d get a box car about every two weeks, sometimes less. UP, BN, BCOL, SP. Jack’s
Roofing also used piggyback service (unloaded elsewhere) to get a truckload of shingles every day. Jack’s Roofing company was located a bit behind Roy Rogers, a few buildings away from the tracks. I recall
them using a two axle flatbed truck and forklift.

So there you have it – the siding had multiple purposes and served a few industries over the years. It’s a neat story and a neat relic! I should really get down there and see it myself, because the fact that someone cleared the brush and put up those small red survey markers leads me to believe it won’t be around for long. 🙁

ca April, 1930 View of Georgetown from Beneath the Aqueduct Bridge

History, Prototype

Train tracks near Potomac River, Washington, D.C.
Harris & Ewing, photographer. (1930) Train tracks near Potomac River, Washington, D.C. District of Columbia United States Washington D.C. Washington D.C, 1930. [April] [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2016889645/.
This view is facing geographic East, looking from beneath the Aqueduct Bridge down Water St along the tracks. Here, the switch opens up to dual trackage laid in the cobblestone streets of Georgetown. In the distance one can see old brick warehouses in disrepair; remnants of an era that was coming to a close. A wood sheathed box car sits alone to the right and various automobiles and motorcycles line the street. The Potomac Boat Club is just visible to the right, nicely done up with shrubberies out front. Through the haze in the background we can make out the Wilkins-Rogers Milling plant and the Lone Star Cement plant on the right. An arch of the Key Bridge dominates the scene.

One interesting thing to note is the double-track “telltale” which spans the tracks just beyond the bridge. The little dangling “whiskers” were there to warn any railroad brakemen raiding atop the cars that the overhead structure (in this case, the Aqueduct) was approaching. There was a matching set on the other side, behind the photographer.  Also of interest is the cobblestone street and the girder rail, used to ensure a flangeway in the shifting cobbles. In the early 1940s the road was paved with concrete and the flanges were cast as part of the right of way.  Surprisingly, several structures remain today that are in this photo; the small brick building to the left, the Brenizer Brewery building straight ahead, the Key Br. (obviously), Wilkins-Rogers Milling (although altered), Potomac Boat House and the Aqueduct arch.

Oct 6, 1958: Film Footage of Georgetown Junction

Georgetown Branch related links, History, Prototype

I was alerted to this film over on Archive.org by an alert viewer who pointed out to me that at the very beginning of this home movie from October 6, 1958 there is a twenty-second view of Georgetown Junction from the rear window of a passenger train! Now, videos of the Georgetown Branch are exceedingly rare, so this is particularly special! The train is moving relatively slowly as it rounds the curve past the team track yards at the Junction. You see cars parked on the sidings, and as it proceeds further you see B&O hoppers, some box cars and a ubiquitous covered hopper. Then a view down the Georgetown Branch appears and the Talbot Ave bridge appears overhead. Nice! The shot closes shortly thereafter.

It’s only twenty seconds long, but for me, it’s all gold. Anyone who conducts research for building model railroads will tell you how important the details are. The colors of ballast, the amount of scrub brush and grass that has grown up along the right of way, the height of trees, the discoloration on the ties, the placement of switches and track alignment, buildings and signs… all of those things inspire and help to fill in the scene. Since photos & videos are uncommon, it really is special to see an actual film of the area. There is a legend of the NRHS having a film of the 1958 fan trip down the GB but I have not been able to locate it yet. The folks over there didn’t have a record of it. I will keep hoping!

Click here to view the movie. Enjoy! (*The GB footage begins at about 00:39 and ends at about 01:00)

Berko Collection: Vacation to Baltimore, Md. and Washington, D.C., October 6-12,1958, Reel 1

August 14, 1904: Tragedy and an View of Georgetown’s Industry

Georgetown Branch related links, History, Prototype
Scene_of_Accident_Launch_Recreation
Medium view of the rescue work conducted in the aftermath of the sinking of the naphtha launch boat “Recreation” in which ten individuals drowned.

Another image I found on DCDIG. From a story in the Washington Post, there was a large, popular regatta in Georgetown out on the Potomac and a pleasure boat sank, with ten drowning victims. The helpless crowd that gathered was large and there were photographers covering the race who also managed to photograph the scene of the tragedy.

The images are fascinating for me, as they portray what the waterfront was like just prior to the introduction of the B&O railroad to the scene. Six years after this photo was taken, B&O trains would be plying the street trackage along this waterfront. In fact, there are buildings in this photo that are still extant today! See this image from Google Maps showing one of the oldest buildings in DC still standing. Unfortunately it’s just the facade, but still impressive! The location of the photographer is approximately 32nd and Water street, but out in the Potomac. (obviously)

Another interesting article: https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1904-08-15/ed-1/seq-1/

https://dcpubliclibrary.tumblr.com/post/164176912521/dcpl-special-collections-librarian-jerry-mccoy

1936 Flooding in Georgetown – Aqueduct Bridge & Boathouse

Georgetown Branch related links, History, Prototype

I just stumbled on this image over at DCDIG which shows the flooding in Georgetown on Mar 19, 1936. The Georgetown Branch ran from the right side to the bottom, through the arch of the old Aqueduct bridge and toward the photographer. If you look carefully you can see the old cast iron DUAL telltales in the foreground! They span the right of way and warned brakemen of the approaching arch. Remember, brakemen rode the roofs of cars back in the older days. The Potomac Boat Club boathouse survives to this day, as does the arch of the Aqueduct bridge.

1936 Flooding in Georgetown
Mar 19, 1936: Flood of the Potomac River on Water Street covering much of the Potomac Boat Club boathouse. Five individuals stand atop the Aqueduct Bridge looking down at the floodwaters.

Freight Cars at the Lincoln Memorial Construction Site

History, Prototype

I’ve always kept an eye out for photos showing freight cars at the Lincoln Memorial, as all of the stone for the Memorial was brought down the Georgetown Branch and onto a temporary branch extension that was laid from the end of the GB, across Rock Creek, down along the Potomac River and over to the construction site. The cornerstone was laid on Feb 12, 1914 so one can reasonably assume that track was laid at some point the previous year when construction began on the massive footings. Foundation work was completed in 1915 and work continued steadily until the Spring of 1917 when the US entered WWI. In Dec 1919 & Jan 1920 the Lincoln statue was assembled. The dedication was on 5/30/1922. So, for roughly ten years the GB was extended to the work site, bringing in the massive marble blocks and pieces needed for one of the most impressive monuments in the US. Pretty neat!

Photos of the construction site are plenty, but rarely focus on the railroad apparatus and right of way that served the site. I have only found a few images and am still uncertain as to the exact alignment of the tracks and yards there. I imagine they would reconfigure to some degree as time went on. Eventually the site around the monument would be filled in with dirt, covering over all of the construction yards surrounding the monument. So recently I found an image which has a couple freight cars visible. I’ve zoomed in on these to highlight the details.

Lincoln Memorial Construction
Unknown flat car with marble load
LV wooden box car. Note the black “LV” logo to the left. 
Postcard view, ca 1918 (eBay)
Aerial view, 1919. (Harris & Ewing / Library of Congress) Note rail yard which has been shortened, at the top of the image. 
Lincoln Memorial under const., January, 1915 (Library of Congress)
1916 Lincoln Memorial construction

Interesting Articles and Timelines on Colorado Yule Marble

Georgetown Branch related links, History, Prototype

Two Booms, Two World Wars, and Colorado Yule Marble is Bust, 1900 to 1945

I have long known about the role the Georgetown Branch played in the construction of the Lincoln Memorial, but it is really refreshing to fill in more details and specifics. This chronicle of the Colorado Yule Marble Co. contains a really neat timeline and history which adds some specifics to when the marble for the Lincoln Memorial would have come down the GB, across Rock Creek and down the Potomac to the Memorial construction site on the temporarily constructed extension to the GB. It seems the first shipment left Yule, CO 5/25/1914, and the final shipment was on 6/16/1916.

A few months later the quarry would shut down, only to reopen six years later. In 1931 the famous Yule marble was once again selected for a notable monument in the DC area, the Tomb of the Unknown. Carved from a single, massive piece of stone, this proved to be a real challenge. I would wager that this stone did not travel on the Georgetown Branch, but rather on the Pennsylvania RR which had a branch that ran into Rosslyn, VA, passing the area where the Tomb is located at Arlington National Cemetery.

Another interesting note I found on the Marble, CO Chamber of Commerce site reads:

The block was loaded onto a rail car and shipped to Vermont for cutting

Another interesting tidbit:

In 1913, a slab of Yule marble was sent to Washington, D.C. to be part of the Washington Monument.

There is some chance this traveled to the Monument site via the GB, but based on proximity of the PRR and its trackage on Virginia Ave & Maryland Ave, I would wager the delivery was handled from that location. There were yards located right near the Mall on that PRR line back then.

I am fascinated by the small moments and details that make the GB special. Its proximity to downtown DC certainly gave it host to many interesting deliveries over the years; National Christmas Trees, stone for national monuments and maybe even a President of the United States. More details on that another time.