Streetcars in Washington, D.C.
Streetcars in Washington, D.C. transported people across the city and region from 1862 until 1962.
The first streetcars in Washington, D.C., were horse-drawn and carried people short distances on flat terrain. After brief experiments with cable cars, the late-19th-century introduction of electric streetcars opened development of the hilly terrain north of the old city and in Anacostia into streetcar suburbs. The extension of several of the lines into Maryland and of two Virginia lines across the Potomac River into the District helped expand the city's dense downtown core into today's Washington metropolitan area.
By 1901, a series of mergers dubbed the "Great Streetcar Consolidation" had gathered most local transit firms into two major companies: Capital Traction Company and Washington Railway and Electric Company. In 1933, a second consolidation brought all streetcars under one company, Capital Transit.
Over the next decades, the streetcar system shrank amid the growing usage of the automobile and pressure to switch to buses. After a strike in 1955, the company changed ownership and became D.C. Transit, with explicit instructions to switch to buses. The system was dismantled in the early 1960s; the last revenue streetcar ran on January 28, 1962.
Today, some streetcars, car barns, trackage, stations, and rights-of-way exist in various states of usage. In the Georgetown neighborhood, remnants of tracks and conduit remain visible in the middle of O and P Streets NW between 33rd and 35th Streets NW, and near an M Street door of the Georgetown Car Barn.
History
Early transit in Washington
ation began in Washington, D.C., almost as soon as the city was founded. In May 1800, two-horse stage coaches began running twice daily from Bridge and High Streets NW in Georgetown by way of M Street NW and Pennsylvania Avenue NW/SE to William Tunnicliff's Tavern at the site now occupied by the Supreme Court Building. Service ended soon after it began.The next attempt at public transit arrived in the spring of 1830, when Gilbert Vanderwerken's Omnibuses, horse-drawn wagons, began running from Georgetown to the Navy Yard. The company maintained stables on M Street, NW. These lines were later extended down 11th Street SE to the waterfront and up 7th Street NW to L Street NW. Vanderwerken's success attracted competitors, who added new lines, but by 1854, all omnibuses had come under the control of two companies, "The Union Line" and "The Citizen's Line." In 1860, these two merged under the control of Vanderwerken and continued to operate until they were run out of business by the next new technology: streetcars.
Horse-drawn streetcars
Washington and Georgetown Railroad
Streetcars began operation in New York City along the Bowery in 1832, but the technology did not really become popular until 1852, when Alphonse Loubat invented a side-bearing rail that could be laid flush with the street surface, allowing the first horse-drawn streetcar lines. The technology began to spread and on May 17, 1862, the first Washington, D.C., streetcar company, the Washington and Georgetown Railroad was incorporated.The company ran the first streetcar in Washington, D.C., from the Capitol to the State Department starting on July 29, 1862. It expanded to full operations from the Navy Yard to Georgetown on October 2, 1862. Another line opened on November 15, 1862. It was built along 7th Street NW from N Street NW to the Potomac River and expanded to the Arsenal in 1875. A third line ran down 14th Street NW from Boundary Street NW to the Treasury Building. In 1863 the 7th Street line was extended north to Boundary Street NW.
Metropolitan Railroad
The Washington and Georgetown's monopoly didn't last long. On July 1, 1864, a second streetcar company, the Metropolitan Railroad, was incorporated. It opened lines from the Capitol to the War Department along H Street NW.In 1872, the railroad built a line on 9th Street NW and purchased the Union Railroad. It used the Union's charter to expand into Georgetown. In 1873, it purchased the Boundary and Silver Spring Railway and used its charter to build north on what is now Georgia Avenue.
In June 1874, it absorbed the Connecticut Avenue and Park Railway and its line on Connecticut Avenue from the White House to Boundary Avenue. By 1888, it had built additional lines down 4th Street NW/SW to P Street SW, and on East Capitol Street to 9th Street.
Columbia Railway
Chartered by Congress on May 24, 1870 and beginning operations the same year, the Columbia Railway was the city's third horse car operator. It ran from the Treasury Building along H Street NW/NE to the city boundary at 15th Street NE. The company built a car barn and stable on the east side of 15th Street just south of H Street at the eastern end of the line.Anacostia and Potomac River Railroad
The Anacostia and Potomac River Railroad was chartered on May 5, 1870. It received Congressional approval on February 18, 1875, and it was built that year. The streetcars traveled from the Arsenal and crossed the Navy Yard Bridge to Uniontown to Nichols Avenue SE and V Street SE, where a car barn and stables were maintained by the company. In 1888, the Anacostia and Potomac River expanded from the Navy Yard to Congressional Cemetery, and past Garfield Park to the Center Market in downtown. It also expanded up Nichols Avenue past the Government Hospital for the Insane.Capitol, North O Street and South Washington Railway
The last streetcar company to begin operation during the horsecar era was the Capitol, North O Street and South Washington Railway. It was incorporated on March 3, 1875, and began operation later that year. It ran on a circular route around downtown D.C. A track on P Street NW was added in 1876. In 1881, the route was extended north and south on 11th Street West and tracks were rerouted across the Mall. It changed its name to the Belt Railway on February 18, 1893.Horse-drawn chariots and the Herdic Phaeton Company
During this time, streetcars competed with numerous horse-drawn chariot companies. Starting on March 5, 1877, the date of President Hayes' inauguration, single-horse carriages began running on a route roughly parallel to the Washington and Georgetown's Pennsylvania Avenue route. After three years, streetcars forced the chariots out of business.This was followed almost immediately by the Herdic Phaeton Company. The electric streetcar, however, was too much for the company to compete with and when its principal stockholder died in 1896, it ceased operations.
After the Herdic Company went under, the Metropolitan Coach Company began running horse-drawn coaches in conjunction with the Metropolitan Railroad, carrying passengers from 16th and T Streets NW to 22nd and G Streets NW. It began operations on May 1, 1897, with a car barn at 1914 E Street NW. In 1904, it became its own corporation.
The switch to electric power
s, though an improvement over horse-drawn wagons, were slow, dirty and inefficient. Horses needed to be housed and fed, created large amounts of waste, had difficulty climbing hills and were difficult to dispose of. Early horsecar companies soon began looking for alternative means of motive power. For example, the Washington and Georgetown experimented with a steam motor car in the 1870s and 1880s which was run on Pennsylvania Avenue NW near the Capitol several times, but was never placed in permanent use.On February 2, 1888, the first successful electric streetcar system in the United States began to operate in Richmond, Virginia. The Richmond Union Passenger Railway was the result of five years of work by Frank Sprague, an 1878 Naval Academy graduate who had resigned his commission to work for Thomas Edison. Richmond's example drew intense interest from many cities, including Washington.
On March 2, 1889, the District's government authorized every streetcar company in Washington to switch from horse power to underground cable or to electricity provided by battery or underground wire. At least two D.C. streetcar companies would install cable mechanisms at great expense only to switch to electric power.
Others moved straight to electrically powered trolleys. But the editor of the Washington Star newspaper led a successful crusade against the use of overhead wires strung along streets to transmit electricity from steam-driven power stations to the streetcars themselves. Instead of this method, common in other cities but which the editor found aesthetically displeasing, D.C. would adopt a far more expensive and finicky system involving an electrical conduit laid between rails in the street.
In 1890, the District authorized companies to sell stock to pay for the upgrades. In 1892, one-horse cars were banned within the city, and by 1894 Congress began requiring companies to switch to something other than horse power.
New electric streetcar companies
By 1888, Washington was expanding north of Boundary Street NW into the hills of Washington Heights and Petworth. Boundary Street was becoming such a misnomer that in 1890 it was renamed Florida Avenue. Climbing the hills to the new parts of the city was difficult for horses, but electric streetcars could do it easily. In the year following the successful demonstration of the Richmond streetcar, four electric streetcar companies were incorporated in Washington, D.C.Eckington and Soldiers' Home
The Eckington and Soldiers' Home Railway was the first to charter, on June 19, 1888, and started operation on October 17. Its tracks started at 7th Street and New York Avenue NW, east of Mount Vernon Square, and traveled 2.5 miles to the Eckington Car Barn at 4th and T Streets NE via Boundary Street NE, Eckington Place NE, R Street NE, 3rd Street NE and T Street NE.Another line ran up 4th Street NE to Michigan Avenue NE. A one-week pass cost $1.25. In 1889, the line was extended along T Street NE, 2nd Street NE and V Street NE to Glenwood Cemetery, but the extension proved unprofitable and was closed in 1894.
At the same time, an extension was built along Michigan Avenue NE to the B&O railroad tracks. In 1895, the company removed its overhead trolley lines in accordance with its charter and attempted to replace them with batteries. These proved too costly and the company replaced them with horses in the central city.
In 1896, Congress directed the Eckington and Soldier's Home to try compressed air motors and to substitute underground electric power for all its horse and overhead trolley lines in the city. The compressed-air motors were a failure; three years later, the company would switch to standard underground electric power conduit.