The Capital Traction Company was the smaller of the two major street railway companies in Washington, D.C. , in the early 20th century.
41-823: It was formed in 1895 when the Rock Creek Railway acquired the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company. The company's streetcars connected the Washington, D.C., neighborhoods of Georgetown , Capitol Hill , the Armory, and Mount Pleasant ; and the suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland . In 1933, it merged with its major competitor, the Washington Railway and Electric Company , and the Washington Rapid Transit Company ,
82-591: A 1-mile extension that ran from its former terminus at 18th and Florida east along U Street NW through the neighborhood of Shaw to 7th Street NW. This double-track line intersected with several downtown lines and made Adams Morgan more readily accessible from downtown . The downtown portion of the line used the underground Love conduit system, while the Connecticut Avenue section used cheaper, more reliable overhead wires. Rock Creek streetcars were equipped for both, and switched from one delivery method to
123-439: A 1966 history of D.C. streetcars. The Rock Creek line fostered development along upper Connecticut Avenue, helping to spawn several northwest Washington, D.C. , neighborhoods: Adams Morgan , Woodley Park , Cleveland Park , North Cleveland Park , Forest Hills , and Chevy Chase . Similarly, and as explicitly intended by its founders, the line fostered the suburb of Chevy Chase, Maryland . In 1923, Capital Traction gained
164-551: A bus operator, to form the Capital Transit Company . In the mid-1890s, numerous streetcar companies operated in the District. Congress tried to deal with this fractured transit system by requiring them to accept transfers and set standard pricing , and by allowing them to use one another's track. But eventually it became clear that consolidation was the best solution. On March 1, 1895, Congress authorized
205-527: A deal in which the RCR issued stock with a total par value of $ 12,000,000, of which $ 10,750,000 was given to W&G stockholders. The actual value of RCR stock and bonds at the time was $ 1,500,000 ($ 54,940,000 today ). On September 21, 1895, the two formed the Capital Traction Company , the first company created during "the great streetcar consolidation." The deal also took advantage of
246-527: A lake to supply water to the railroad's northern power house . This generating plant, which burned coal that arrived on a B&O siding , used the Thomson-Houston system installed by General Electric to deliver electricity to streetcars via overhead poles. The poles—ornamented iron within the city and a mile beyond, square post lumber for the remaining mile—drove streetcars all the way to 18th and U Streets. On September 16, 1892, service opened on
287-481: A peculiar facet of the Rock Creek Railway, whose revenues were rather sparse but whose charter placed no limits on the amount of money that might be raised through the sale of stock and bonds. "This providential clause was turned to good advantage in the reorganization of the prosperous Washington and Georgetown Railroad which was severely crippled by its fixed capital ceiling of only $ 500,000", according to
328-498: A principal stock holder. North American never owned more than 2.5% of Capital Traction stock. The Great Depression hurt transit companies' revenue. On December 1, 1933, Washington Railway, Capital Traction, and Washington Rapid Transit , a bus company, merged to form the Capital Transit Company . Washington Railway continued as a holding company, owning 50% of Capital Transit and 100% of PEPCO, but Capital Traction
369-612: The Decatur Street Car Barn and extended the 14th Street line north to reach it. Further expansion came with Congressional approval on May 23, 1908. First, three new connections were built to serve Washington Union Station east of downtown. Connections were made from New Jersey Avenue, F Street NE, and from the spur to the B&;O station. Second, a new crosstown line was laid down on Florida Avenue to Gallaudet University and south along Eighth Street where it connected to
410-556: The Decatur Street Car Barn and the Northern Bus Garage ) is a historic streetcar car barn in northwest Washington, D.C. Built in 1906 by the Capital Traction Company , it was later turned into a bus garage and is currently owned by Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority . Located at 4615 14th Street NW , near the end of the 14th Street streetcar line , the two-story brick structure
451-494: The Duke Ellington Bridge ; to minimize traffic disruption, the trestle was moved 80 feet downstream on rollers and kept in use until the new bridge was completed, whereupon it was demolished on December 17 of that year .) Returning to solid ground, the track joined the recently graded extension of Connecticut Avenue NW north of Rock Creek and turned then ran north-northwest. The line continued on Connecticut to
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#1732794392886492-451: The District line at Chevy Chase Circle , then on trackage built by Newlands' Chevy Chase Land Company 1.7 miles due north to just past Coquelin Run in today's unincorporated Chevy Chase, Maryland . “The road bed, after leaving the improved streets of the city, was constructed with great difficulty, and at an enormous expense. Connecticut Avenue (extended) having as yet been unimproved, and
533-564: The Japanese war effort. In 1937, the disused car barn at Chevy Chase Lake was converted into an equestrian riding ring for a polo club led by Mildred Pepper, wife of Sen. Claude Pepper , D-Florida. In 1980, the Chevy Chase Lake waiting station at the northern end of the line was disassembled and moved to Hyattstown, Maryland . Capital Traction Company Car Barn The Capital Traction Company Car Barn (also known as
574-691: The Pennsylvania Avenue line and the Navy Yard. Trains began serving Union Station on June 24, 1908, and the other lines were completed soon thereafter. During this time the 14th street line was expanded north to Colorado Avenue where it connected with the Baltimore and Washington Transit Company's Kennedy Avenue line. In 1910, Capital Traction began construction on a power house in Georgetown to power its streetcars. The facility opened on
615-578: The Potomac River to Virginia. The company struck a deal with the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad, which had operated from Virginia to a terminal next to Capital Traction's Georgetown car barn: the W&;OD did not seek rights to operate on the new bridge, and in exchange, Capital Traction built a new terminal for the Virginia railroad next to its Rosslyn loop. The D.C. company began operations on
656-495: The Rock Creek Railway to purchase and merge with any connecting company, and to change its name to the Capital Traction Company. The company consequently merged with the Washington and Georgetown on September 21, 1895. The merger also took advantage of a peculiar facet of the Rock Creek Railway, whose revenues were rather sparse but whose charter placed no limits on the amount of money that might be raised through
697-645: The Rock Creek Railway were changed to the more standard and less expensive contact shoe. At the same time, the place where cars changed between the Capital Traction and Metropolitan systems was moved from U and 18th Streets, the original city terminus of the Rock Creek Railway, to the Calvert Street Loop, just east of the Calvert Street Bridge over Rock Creek. Service on the old line on Florida Avenue between 18th and Connecticut
738-514: The Virginia companies never used it and the Metropolitan only sparingly. The Washington and Great Falls took over the third floor. The station opened on May 27, 1897, and contained Washington's only cable loop. On September 29, 1897, the Capital Traction Company's powerhouse at 14th and E NW burned down and the city took the site for its Municipal Building . The company replaced the cable cars it served with an electric system, using horses in
779-615: The city, so the railroad used the Love conduit system between the rails to provide power to the cars. (These original tracks would be removed in 1899 as the city's streetcar network developed. ) Meanwhile, the Land Company was extending Connecticut Avenue, down whose center the railroad would run, from the Rock Creek valley past the D.C.-Maryland line and into the land that would become Chevy Chase, Maryland. Tracks were laid from
820-735: The company on June 23, 1888 (just four days after D.C.'s first electric trolley company, the Eckington and Soldiers' Home Railway ). The railroad's officers were the same as the Chevy Chase Land Company's: Newlands, president; Edward J. Stellwagen, vice-president; Howard S. Nyman, secretary; Thomas M. Gale, treasurer, and A. J. Warner, manager. In 1890, the railroad began operations on its first quarter-mile of track, connecting Connecticut Avenue NW and 18th Street NW along Florida Avenue (recently renamed from Boundary Street). Overhead trolley poles were forbidden in this part of
861-444: The country being very rugged, a succession of deep cuts and fills were necessary, as well as the bridging of several deep ravines," wrote Electrical World. Some 454,000 cubic yards were removed, including 242,000 of solid rock, 97,000 of loose rock, 32,000 of hard pan, and 83,000 of earth: an average of 75,000 cubic yards for each of the six miles. A bridge was built to carry road and track across Klingle Ford Road . The overhead wire
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#1732794392886902-597: The interim. The electric wire for the cars was placed in the old cable system's underground conduit. The 14th Street branch switched to electric power on February 27, 1898, the Pennsylvania Avenue division on April 20, 1898 (March 20 west of the Capitol), and the 7th Street branch on May 26, 1898. In the spring of 1899, Capital Traction replaced the underground conduit system that delivered power to its streetcars where overhead trolley poles were forbidden. The Love conduit system and its balky trolley wheels originally installed by
943-506: The line advertised its route past the National Zoological Park , which opened in 1889. And like many streetcar companies, the Chevy Chase Land Company built its own trolley park : Chevy Chase Lake Amusement Park , which opened on 1894 just east of Connecticut Avenue at the railroad's northern terminus. A central feature was the power house's artificial lake, landscaped for boating. One more source of passenger traffic
984-472: The new bridge in 1923. The North American Company , a transit and utilities holding company, began to acquire stock in Washington Railway in 1922, gaining a controlling interest by 1928. By December 31, 1933, it owned 50.016% of the voting stock. North American tried to purchase Capital Traction as well, but Capital Traction always remained widely owned by the residents of Washington, without
1025-786: The original terminus at U Street NW up 18th Street through the neighborhood today known as Adams Morgan , where it formed a junction with the Metropolitan Railroad at Columbia Road. Turning west along Erie Street (today's Calvert Street), the line approached the Rock Creek gorge. Bridging the valley was the railroad's single most difficult engineering challenge. The company hired the Edge Moor Iron Works to build an iron truss bridge at Cincinnati Street NW (now Calvert Street NW). The 775-foot, 1,226-ton bridge, whose six trusses sat on 125-foot-high iron trestles,
1066-468: The other on every run at 18th and V Streets NW, a process that took 30 seconds or less. (In 1899, the Love conduit would be replaced by overhead poles. ) In 1894, the line regularly operated 20 streetcars on 15-minute headways —and 7-minute headways on Sundays and holidays. The price for a single streetcar ride was 5 cents, or 6 rides for 25 cents. (It would rise to 7 cents in 1919.) To boost ridership,
1107-594: The right to run its streetcars on the tracks of the Kensington Railway, which allowed it to operate through service from downtown D.C. through Chevy Chase Lake to Norris Station in Kensington. Twelve years later, Capital Traction was given permission to replace streetcars on the Chevy Chase line with buses. The last streetcars ran on September 15, 1935. The trolley poles, safety domes, and most of
1148-473: The sale of stock and bonds. "This providential clause was turned to good advantage in the reorganization of the prosperous Washington and Georgetown Railroad which was severely crippled by its fixed capital ceiling of only $ 500,000", according to a 1966 history of D.C. streetcars. Within months of the merger, the new Capital Traction Company began building an ambitious Waddy Wood -designed car barn at 3600 M Street NW in Georgetown. To be called Union Station, it
1189-530: The six-mile extension of the line, making the Rock Creek Railway the first D.C.-based streetcar to operate in Maryland. Congress approved two proposed extensions on April 30, 1892. One was a northern spur to the National Zoo that was never built, but the authorization to lay track east along Florida Avenue to North Capitol Street was eventually used. On March 2, 1893, the Rock Creek Railway opened
1230-419: The two major streetcar companies that operated in and around Washington, D.C., in the early decades of the 20th century. The line fostered the development of several neighborhoods of northwest Washington, D.C. , and suburban Maryland. The Rock Creek Railway was founded by Francis Newlands as part of a plan to develop streetcar suburbs in northwestern D.C. and adjacent Maryland. He and his partners incorporated
1271-581: The value of land owned by the Chevy Chase Land Company , the railroad began service in 1890. By 1893, it stretched more than seven miles from the Cardoza/Shaw neighborhood of D.C. to Coquelin Run in Maryland. The trip from Chevy Chase to downtown took about 35 minutes. In 1895, the railroad purchased the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company and changed its name to the Capital Traction Company , which would become one of
Capital Traction Company - Misplaced Pages Continue
1312-475: The waiting stations were removed the following week. The tracks remained for several years, but when the Export Control Act was passed barring the sale of most scrap metal to Japan it had a loophole for old rails, which made Rock Creek rail very lucrative. At that point, the tracks in Maryland were pulled up and sold to Japan by the state of Maryland. It's likely the tracks were melted down for use in
1353-592: The waterfront in 1912. In 1916 Capital Traction took ownership of the Washington and Maryland and its 2.591 miles (4.170 km) of track. Streetcars were unionized in 1916 when Local 689 of the Amalgamated Association of Street, Electric Railway and Motor Coach Employees of America won recognition after a three-day strike . As the Key Bridge was under construction in the early 1920s, Capital Traction sought to expand its operations across
1394-555: Was designed by local architects Wood, Donn & Deming in Italian Renaissance style and built by contractors Richardson and Burgess. The building originally measured 537 by 208 feet (164 m × 63 m) and included two turntables . Starting in 1926, the Washington Rapid Transit Company leased part of its space for use as a bus garage. It was fully converted to a bus garage in 1959 and later became WMATA’s Metrobus Northern Division garage. In 2013, it
1435-462: Was discontinued that year and the track removed. In 1904, "Power for the entire conduit system is furnished from a power station of 2,625-kilowatt capacity, located on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal , between Thirty-second and Potomac Streets northwest. Power for the overhead line is furnished by a station situated at the northern terminus of the Chevy Chase line." In 1906, Capital Traction built
1476-426: Was dissolved. For the first time, street railways in Washington were under the management of one company. Today, parts of the former lines are run by various Metrobus Routes. Rock Creek Railway The Rock Creek Railway , which operated independently from 1890 to 1895, was one of the first electric streetcar companies in Washington, D.C. , and the first to extend into Maryland . Created to increase
1517-409: Was hung from poles set every 125 feet: iron poles manufactured by John A. Roebling’s Sons Co. The line ended just south of the grade crossing of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad 's Georgetown Branch at Connecticut Avenue. Here the Rock Creek built a terminus complex that included a small station and the railroad's six-track car barn. Coquelin Run, a small tributary of Rock Creek, was dammed to create
1558-469: Was listed on the National Register of Historic Places . In 2019, WMATA closed the building to replace it with a new one that will include storage and maintenance for electric buses , along with up to 27,000 square feet of retail space, streetscape improvements, and a community room. The architects are the firms of Beyer Blinder Belle and Wendel. All but the eastern (14th Street) facade of
1599-522: Was meant to serve four streetcar companies. The Metropolitan Railroad would use the roof, the old Washington and Georgetown lines would use the ground floor, and the Washington, Arlington, and Falls Church and the projected Great Falls and Old Dominion were to cross the Potomac from Rosslyn on the Aqueduct Bridge , entering the second and third floors respectively on steel trestles . But
1640-426: Was officially completed on July 21, 1891. On the previous day, the railroad, under the terms of its charter, had transferred both of its bridges to the city of Washington, D.C. (In 1911, the rickety Rock Creek bridge would be shored up by narrowing its roadway from 40 feet to 25 and adding timber cribbing, which would in 1922 be replaced by steel joints and asphalt surface. The bridge itself would be replaced in 1935 by
1681-627: Was the Chevy Chase Lake & Kensington Railway (later, the Kensington Railway Company), a streetcar line that opened in 1895 and ran two winding miles north from the Rock Creek's terminus to the town of Kensington . On March 1, 1895, Congress authorized the Rock Creek Railway to purchase the Washington and Georgetown Railroad as part of an attempt to consolidate the streetcar system. Negotiations in August led to