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116-425: The trail gets its name from the nearby Three Notch Road, the main highway between northern St. Mary's and Point Lookout since the pre-colonial days. The name is attributed to a 1704 law that stipulated "three notches of equal distance" be marked on trees to indicate the road leading to a ferry. The trail runs on the abandoned right-of-way of the U.S. Naval Air Station Railroad . The railroad north from Mechanicsville

232-408: A crank on a driving axle. Steam locomotives have been phased out in most parts of the world for economical and safety reasons, although many are preserved in working order by heritage railways . Electric locomotives draw power from a stationary source via an overhead wire or third rail . Some also or instead use a battery . In locomotives that are powered by high-voltage alternating current ,

348-586: A dining car . Some lines also provide over-night services with sleeping cars . Some long-haul trains have been given a specific name . Regional trains are medium distance trains that connect cities with outlying, surrounding areas, or provide a regional service, making more stops and having lower speeds. Commuter trains serve suburbs of urban areas, providing a daily commuting service. Airport rail links provide quick access from city centres to airports . High-speed rail are special inter-city trains that operate at much higher speeds than conventional railways,

464-731: A fourth rail system in 1890 on the City and South London Railway , now part of the London Underground Northern line . This was the first major railway to use electric traction . The world's first deep-level electric railway, it runs from the City of London , under the River Thames , to Stockwell in south London. The first practical AC electric locomotive was designed by Charles Brown , then working for Oerlikon , Zürich. In 1891, Brown had demonstrated long-distance power transmission, using three-phase AC , between

580-542: A funicular railway at the Hohensalzburg Fortress in Austria. The line originally used wooden rails and a hemp haulage rope and was operated by human or animal power, through a treadwheel . The line is still operational, although in updated form and is possibly the oldest operational railway. Wagonways (or tramways ) using wooden rails, hauled by horses, started appearing in the 1550s to facilitate

696-492: A hydro-electric plant at Lauffen am Neckar and Frankfurt am Main West, a distance of 280 km (170 mi). Using experience he had gained while working for Jean Heilmann on steam–electric locomotive designs, Brown observed that three-phase motors had a higher power-to-weight ratio than DC motors and, because of the absence of a commutator , were simpler to manufacture and maintain. However, they were much larger than

812-431: A steam engine that provides adhesion. Coal , petroleum , or wood is burned in a firebox , boiling water in the boiler to create pressurized steam. The steam travels through the smokebox before leaving via the chimney or smoke stack. In the process, it powers a piston that transmits power directly through a connecting rod (US: main rod) and a crankpin (US: wristpin) on the driving wheel (US main driver) or to

928-469: A transformer in the locomotive converts the high-voltage low-current power to low-voltage high current used in the traction motors that power the wheels. Modern locomotives may use three-phase AC induction motors or direct current motors. Under certain conditions, electric locomotives are the most powerful traction. They are also the cheapest to run and provide less noise and no local air pollution. However, they require high capital investments both for

1044-467: A coaling station. The Navy also thought that the railroad, paired with a steamer, could cut the travel time between Washington and Norfolk by six hours. The Navy thus supported a bill that would guarantee the SMR a payment if they completed the railroad, but it never passed. Nonetheless the promise of a guaranteed customer if the line could be completed drew the frequent attention of other railroaders. In 1878,

1160-745: A competitor railroad, the Washington City and Point Lookout Railroad was incorporated and the following year authorized to run trains between Washington, D.C., and Point Lookout with connecting steamers to Norfolk, Virginia . It would be a thorn in the SMR's side though the only rail it would build was the Alexandria Extension . By mid-1873, the SMR had built 30 miles of roadbed from the B&;P at Brandywine to St. Joseph's Church in Morganza and 12 miles north from Point Lookout. Work

1276-720: A dead-end near 45440 Miramar Way. It was also built around 2010. Phase IV-B, a 1.8 mile section from Pegg Road in Lexington Park to Chancellors Run Road in California is being built as part of Phase 3 of the FDR Boulevard Project. Phase 3A of that project, from MD 237 to Buck Hewitt Rd was completed on November 14, 2023. Phase 3b is expected to be completed in 2025. In 2018, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan's administration awarded St. Mary's County $ 4.1 million from two separate state and federal grant programs for

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1392-550: A diesel locomotive from the company in 1909. The world's first diesel-powered locomotive was operated in the summer of 1912 on the Winterthur–Romanshorn railway in Switzerland, but was not a commercial success. The locomotive weight was 95 tonnes and the power was 883 kW with a maximum speed of 100 km/h (62 mph). Small numbers of prototype diesel locomotives were produced in a number of countries through

1508-478: A double track plateway, erroneously sometimes cited as world's first public railway, in south London. William Jessop had earlier used a form of all-iron edge rail and flanged wheels successfully for an extension to the Charnwood Forest Canal at Nanpantan , Loughborough, Leicestershire in 1789. In 1790, Jessop and his partner Outram began to manufacture edge rails. Jessop became a partner in

1624-437: A large turning radius in its design. While high-speed rail is most often designed for passenger travel, some high-speed systems also offer freight service. Since 1980, rail transport has changed dramatically, but a number of heritage railways continue to operate as part of living history to preserve and maintain old railway lines for services of tourist trains. A train is a connected series of rail vehicles that move along

1740-498: A larger locomotive named Galvani , exhibited at the Royal Scottish Society of Arts Exhibition in 1841. The seven-ton vehicle had two direct-drive reluctance motors , with fixed electromagnets acting on iron bars attached to a wooden cylinder on each axle, and simple commutators . It hauled a load of six tons at four miles per hour (6 kilometers per hour) for a distance of one and a half miles (2.4 kilometres). It

1856-423: A locomotive. This involves one or more powered vehicles being located at the front of the train, providing sufficient tractive force to haul the weight of the full train. This arrangement remains dominant for freight trains and is often used for passenger trains. A push–pull train has the end passenger car equipped with a driver's cab so that the engine driver can remotely control the locomotive. This allows one of

1972-477: A number of trains per hour (tph). Passenger trains can usually be into two types of operation, intercity railway and intracity transit. Whereas intercity railway involve higher speeds, longer routes, and lower frequency (usually scheduled), intracity transit involves lower speeds, shorter routes, and higher frequency (especially during peak hours). Intercity trains are long-haul trains that operate with few stops between cities. Trains typically have amenities such as

2088-676: A piece of circular rail track in Bloomsbury , London, the Catch Me Who Can , but never got beyond the experimental stage with railway locomotives, not least because his engines were too heavy for the cast-iron plateway track then in use. The first commercially successful steam locomotive was Matthew Murray 's rack locomotive Salamanca built for the Middleton Railway in Leeds in 1812. This twin-cylinder locomotive

2204-465: A pivotal role in the development and widespread adoption of the steam locomotive. His designs considerably improved on the work of the earlier pioneers. He built the locomotive Blücher , also a successful flanged -wheel adhesion locomotive. In 1825 he built the locomotive Locomotion for the Stockton and Darlington Railway in the northeast of England, which became the first public steam railway in

2320-439: A revival in recent decades due to road congestion and rising fuel prices, as well as governments investing in rail as a means of reducing CO 2 emissions . Smooth, durable road surfaces have been made for wheeled vehicles since prehistoric times. In some cases, they were narrow and in pairs to support only the wheels. That is, they were wagonways or tracks. Some had grooves or flanges or other mechanical means to keep

2436-765: A section of track in East Washington that was intended to connect with this line but never did. The WB&PL was later acquired by the Navy, which extended the line to Cedar Point and the Patuxent Naval Air Station . In 1962, the Pennsylvania Railroad constructed a spur from Hughesville, Maryland to the Chalk Point Generating Station . During the 1960s and 1970s, the section from Hughesville to Cedar Point

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2552-739: A single lever to control both engine and generator in a coordinated fashion, and was the prototype for all diesel–electric locomotive control systems. In 1914, world's first functional diesel–electric railcars were produced for the Königlich-Sächsische Staatseisenbahnen ( Royal Saxon State Railways ) by Waggonfabrik Rastatt with electric equipment from Brown, Boveri & Cie and diesel engines from Swiss Sulzer AG . They were classified as DET 1 and DET 2 ( de.wiki ). The first regular used diesel–electric locomotives were switcher (shunter) locomotives . General Electric produced several small switching locomotives in

2668-407: A standard. Following SNCF's successful trials, 50 Hz, now also called industrial frequency was adopted as standard for main-lines across the world. Earliest recorded examples of an internal combustion engine for railway use included a prototype designed by William Dent Priestman . Sir William Thomson examined it in 1888 and described it as a "Priestman oil engine mounted upon a truck which

2784-400: A steam engine for freight. In November 1921, work began on expanding the line to Hollywood and then to Esperanza with a spur off the main line south of California, where they hoped to gain access to an important freight terminal, and then later to Point Lookout. The work was made easier because much of the route had been surveyed and graded in the 1880's. They had hoped to reach Hollywood by

2900-852: A tax auction and used it for its operation, ejecting the W&;P in 1901. The case went to the Supreme Court and in 1905 WP&CR won and took title to the railway. The CBR then stopped running on the DC section of the railway, instead stopping at the train station in Seat Pleasant called District Line. In 1911, the CBR started leasing the District section of the line and continued until the WP&;CR went out of business in 1918. At that point they purchased

3016-632: A terminus about one-half mile (800 m) away. A funicular railway was also made at Broseley in Shropshire some time before 1604. This carried coal for James Clifford from his mines down to the River Severn to be loaded onto barges and carried to riverside towns. The Wollaton Wagonway , completed in 1604 by Huntingdon Beaumont , has sometimes erroneously been cited as the earliest British railway. It ran from Strelley to Wollaton near Nottingham . The Middleton Railway in Leeds , which

3132-408: A wheel. This was a large stationary engine , powering cotton mills and a variety of machinery; the state of boiler technology necessitated the use of low-pressure steam acting upon a vacuum in the cylinder, which required a separate condenser and an air pump . Nevertheless, as the construction of boilers improved, Watt investigated the use of high-pressure steam acting directly upon a piston, raising

3248-410: Is a single, self-powered car, and may be electrically propelled or powered by a diesel engine . Multiple units have a driver's cab at each end of the unit, and were developed following the ability to build electric motors and other engines small enough to fit under the coach. There are only a few freight multiple units, most of which are high-speed post trains. Steam locomotives are locomotives with

3364-399: Is dominant. Electro-diesel locomotives are built to run as diesel–electric on unelectrified sections and as electric locomotives on electrified sections. Alternative methods of motive power include magnetic levitation , horse-drawn, cable , gravity, pneumatics and gas turbine . A passenger train stops at stations where passengers may embark and disembark. The oversight of the train is

3480-408: Is usually provided by diesel or electrical locomotives . While railway transport is capital-intensive and less flexible than road transport, it can carry heavy loads of passengers and cargo with greater energy efficiency and safety. Precursors of railways driven by human or animal power have existed since antiquity, but modern rail transport began with the invention of the steam locomotive in

3596-556: Is worked on a temporary line of rails to show the adaptation of a petroleum engine for locomotive purposes." In 1894, a 20 hp (15 kW) two axle machine built by Priestman Brothers was used on the Hull Docks . In 1906, Rudolf Diesel , Adolf Klose and the steam and diesel engine manufacturer Gebrüder Sulzer founded Diesel-Sulzer-Klose GmbH to manufacture diesel-powered locomotives. Sulzer had been manufacturing diesel engines since 1898. The Prussian State Railways ordered

Three Notch Trail - Misplaced Pages Continue

3712-707: The Southern Maryland Railroad ) was an American railroad that operated in southern Maryland and Washington, D.C. , from 1918 to 1942; but it and other, shorter-lived entities used the same right-of-way from 1883 to 1965. The single-track line connected Mechanicsville, Maryland to the Pennsylvania Railroad in Brandywine. Most of the rail was constructed by the Southern Maryland Railroad, which also built

3828-692: The United Kingdom at the beginning of the 19th century. The first passenger railway, the Stockton and Darlington Railway , opened in 1825. The quick spread of railways throughout Europe and North America, following the 1830 opening of the first intercity connection in England, was a key component of the Industrial Revolution . The adoption of rail transport lowered shipping costs compared to water transport, leading to "national markets" in which prices varied less from city to city. In

3944-615: The United Kingdom , South Korea , Scandinavia, Belgium and the Netherlands. The construction of many of these lines has resulted in the dramatic decline of short-haul flights and automotive traffic between connected cities, such as the London–Paris–Brussels corridor, Madrid–Barcelona, Milan–Rome–Naples, as well as many other major lines. High-speed trains normally operate on standard gauge tracks of continuously welded rail on grade-separated right-of-way that incorporates

4060-582: The Washington, Potomac & Chesapeake Railway (WP&CR). John P. Poe, a lawyer, represented parties in several cases involving the rail line and eventually became a director of the WP&CR. They quickly set to exerting their control over the tracks the SMR had built in the District, beginning ejectment hearings against the Chesapeake Beach Railway in 1902. In 1898, the CBR took possession of this section of railway, presumably via

4176-414: The overhead lines and the supporting infrastructure, as well as the generating station that is needed to produce electricity. Accordingly, electric traction is used on urban systems, lines with high traffic and for high-speed rail. Diesel locomotives use a diesel engine as the prime mover . The energy transmission may be either diesel–electric , diesel-mechanical or diesel–hydraulic but diesel–electric

4292-458: The puddling process in 1784. In 1783 Cort also patented the rolling process , which was 15 times faster at consolidating and shaping iron than hammering. These processes greatly lowered the cost of producing iron and rails. The next important development in iron production was hot blast developed by James Beaumont Neilson (patented 1828), which considerably reduced the amount of coke (fuel) or charcoal needed to produce pig iron. Wrought iron

4408-418: The rotary phase converter , enabling electric locomotives to use three-phase motors whilst supplied via a single overhead wire, carrying the simple industrial frequency (50 Hz) single phase AC of the high-voltage national networks. An important contribution to the wider adoption of AC traction came from SNCF of France after World War II. The company conducted trials at AC 50 Hz, and established it as

4524-540: The 1880s, railway electrification began with tramways and rapid transit systems. Starting in the 1940s, steam locomotives were replaced by diesel locomotives . The first high-speed railway system was introduced in Japan in 1964, and high-speed rail lines now connect many cities in Europe , East Asia , and the eastern United States . Following some decline due to competition from cars and airplanes, rail transport has had

4640-521: The 1930s (the famous " 44-tonner " switcher was introduced in 1940) Westinghouse Electric and Baldwin collaborated to build switching locomotives starting in 1929. In 1929, the Canadian National Railways became the first North American railway to use diesels in mainline service with two units, 9000 and 9001, from Westinghouse. Although steam and diesel services reaching speeds up to 200 km/h (120 mph) were started before

4756-508: The 1960s in Europe, they were not very successful. The first electrified high-speed rail Tōkaidō Shinkansen was introduced in 1964 between Tokyo and Osaka in Japan. Since then high-speed rail transport, functioning at speeds up to and above 300 km/h (190 mph), has been built in Japan, Spain, France , Germany, Italy, the People's Republic of China, Taiwan (Republic of China),

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4872-464: The 40 km Burgdorf–Thun line , Switzerland. Italian railways were the first in the world to introduce electric traction for the entire length of a main line rather than a short section. The 106 km Valtellina line was opened on 4 September 1902, designed by Kandó and a team from the Ganz works. The electrical system was three-phase at 3 kV 15 Hz. In 1918, Kandó invented and developed

4988-530: The Butterley Company in 1790. The first public edgeway (thus also first public railway) built was Lake Lock Rail Road in 1796. Although the primary purpose of the line was to carry coal, it also carried passengers. These two systems of constructing iron railways, the "L" plate-rail and the smooth edge-rail, continued to exist side by side until well into the early 19th century. The flanged wheel and edge-rail eventually proved its superiority and became

5104-547: The Chesapeake Bay would spur agricultural and mineral businesses on the peninsula. The company quickly set its sights on running into Washington, D.C. In 1872, the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad (B&P) began work on its mainline to Pope's Creek and this motivated work on grading the rail which started in the spring of that year. Prior to that only work being done was surveying and fund-raising. That same year

5220-466: The DC motors of the time and could not be mounted in underfloor bogies : they could only be carried within locomotive bodies. In 1894, Hungarian engineer Kálmán Kandó developed a new type 3-phase asynchronous electric drive motors and generators for electric locomotives. Kandó's early 1894 designs were first applied in a short three-phase AC tramway in Évian-les-Bains (France), which was constructed between 1896 and 1898. In 1896, Oerlikon installed

5336-571: The Navy decided it no longer wanted to operate the line in 1954, the PRR took over operations, moving freight and occasionally a USN passenger car or caboose for special movements to/from the Brandywine Junction, which became a Department of Defense Warehouse and shipping point until it was destroyed by fire. The Brandywine terminal was U.S. government property and was maintained by Public Works personnel from Patuxent River. The terminal

5452-404: The Navy paid the company $ 127,500 to settle their claims and ran their first train that month. It included a wye just north of Lexington Park with a small stub into north Lexington Park and 15 miles of siding and yard track. Its 32 employees operated three diesel locomotives and 110 cars. The Navy operated an "accommodation" train that connected with the Pennsylvania Railroad in Brandywine until

5568-564: The PRR stopped passenger trains on the Pope's Creek Line in 1949. By 1952, the Navy had 55 miles of track, three diesel locomotives, and three dozen railcars delivering gasoline, coal, ammunition and airplane parts. By 1953, the aging track rails were frequently breaking; operators requested that the rails be replaced. After a cost/benefit analysis, the Navy decided to discontinue service. The last train ran from Patuxent NAS to Hollywood on June 30, 1954, carrying employees, family members, troops, and

5684-528: The SMR graded the railroad all the way to Esperanza (located on the Patuxent just downstream from the current Governor Thomas Johnson Bridge ) and laid track to Mechanicsville. Trains began running between Brandywine and Mechanicsville in 1883. At that time the railroad was still planning to build a line from Benning to Brandywine, to extend the line to Point Lookout and to build a spur off the mainline to Esperanza just across from Solomon's Island. In 1882,

5800-592: The Southern was finally granted permission to enter the District of Columbia. Work began on grading that 2.2 mile rail line from Benning via Deanwood in 1884 and some track was laid by 1885. By 1886, the railroad had laid down ties and some rail in D.C., but it never operated trains on this section, which later came under control of the Chesapeake Beach Railway . In 1885, having spent extensive money on construction but putting into operations only

5916-428: The U.S. government to buy the railroad to keep it from being removed, arguing that it had a critical national defense purpose. When that failed, Rep. Syd Mudd had the government cancel the contracts to buy the scrap metal from the new owners and had the court intervene to prevent their removal. After it was shut down and nearly scrapped in 1918, a new company, the Washington, Brandywine & Point Lookout Railroad

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6032-456: The WC&;PL scared off the WC&PL's English investors. The WC&PL formed an alliance with the B&O, but their plans were scuttled by company President John W. Garrett . Years later when it became clear that the endeavor was hopeless the rails and ties, which had sat in piles in Brandywine, were reallocated to the building of the Chesapeake Beach Railway . Over the next couple of years

6148-513: The WC&PL was authorized to purchase the SMR but never did. In March 1881, the railroad began to lay track from Brandywine where it would connect with the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad (later the Pope's Creek branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad ). The WC&PL also broke ground on its rail line to Point Lookout in 1881 and, like the SMR, it started at a connection with the Baltimore and Potomac at Brandywine. The two started work at almost

6264-411: The WP&CR's charter revoked as there was still interest in completing the line or a parallel one. The railroad was eventually sold to a New York corporation that was then dissolved. On December 31, 1917 the railroad was shut down and the company began removing the track, about a half mile of it, for scrap due to the high price of scrap metal during World War I . Maryland's senators then called on

6380-676: The construction of phase VII - the 3.3 mile section from FDR Boulevard in California to Rescue Lane in Hollywood, MD. In September 2023, Maryland Governor Wes Moore announced $ 1.2 million in additional funds for phase VII, as part of the Kim Lamphier Bikeways Network Program by the Maryland Department of Transportation . In December 2023, the St. Mary's County Commission approved matching funds for

6496-430: The duty of a guard/train manager/conductor . Passenger trains are part of public transport and often make up the stem of the service, with buses feeding to stations. Passenger trains provide long-distance intercity travel, daily commuter trips, or local urban transit services, operating with a diversity of vehicles, operating speeds, right-of-way requirements, and service frequency. Service frequencies are often expressed as

6612-418: The end of 1889 when a fire destroyed the roundhouse, engines and rolling stock. A lawyer from New York, working with the WC&PL, received permission from the underlying land owners to build another line on the same route and began running trains on the repaired W&P tracks but was stopped by an injunction brought by the legal owners of the W&P. After a lengthy 1892 court case, the WC&PL lost and

6728-402: The end of the 19th century, because they were cleaner compared to steam-driven trams which caused smoke in city streets. In 1784 James Watt , a Scottish inventor and mechanical engineer, patented a design for a steam locomotive . Watt had improved the steam engine of Thomas Newcomen , hitherto used to pump water out of mines, and developed a reciprocating engine in 1769 capable of powering

6844-471: The end of the 19th century, improving the quality of steel and further reducing costs. Thus steel completely replaced the use of iron in rails, becoming standard for all railways. The first passenger horsecar or tram , Swansea and Mumbles Railway , was opened between Swansea and Mumbles in Wales in 1807. Horses remained the preferable mode for tram transport even after the arrival of steam engines until

6960-527: The engine by one power stroke. The transmission system employed a large flywheel to even out the action of the piston rod. On 21 February 1804, the world's first steam-powered railway journey took place when Trevithick's unnamed steam locomotive hauled a train along the tramway of the Penydarren ironworks, near Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales . Trevithick later demonstrated a locomotive operating upon

7076-475: The era of great expansion of railways that began in the late 1860s. Steel rails lasted several times longer than iron. Steel rails made heavier locomotives possible, allowing for longer trains and improving the productivity of railroads. The Bessemer process introduced nitrogen into the steel, which caused the steel to become brittle with age. The open hearth furnace began to replace the Bessemer process near

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7192-405: The exact same time and their two roads were no more than 100 feet apart. At this point both companies had graded separated routes from Point Lookout to California, MD; but only the SMR had graded the road from California to Brandywine and so they were laying track faster. When it came time for the WC&PL to issue more bonds to continue the work, a rumor that the SMR had secured a larger loan than

7308-680: The existing rail with newer, heavier rail; rehabilitated the track structure; acquired new right-of-way, and extended service to Millstone Landing on the Patuxent River , the Air Station's northernmost point. They changed the name to the U.S. Naval Air Station Railroad, although it was also known as the Brandywine and Cedar Point Railroad , the Patuxent Railroad or just the U.S. Government Railroad . In April 1943,

7424-555: The federal government took over operation of the line; 15 days later, it took possession of the railroad under the Second War Powers Act . The United States Navy put the railroad to use moving the vast amount of equipment needed to build and support Patuxent River Naval Air Station , the Cedar Point facility where the service's aeronautics bureau had consolidated its aviation testing programs. The Navy replaced

7540-522: The first commercial example of the system on the Lugano Tramway . Each 30-tonne locomotive had two 110 kW (150 hp) motors run by three-phase 750 V 40 Hz fed from double overhead lines. Three-phase motors run at a constant speed and provide regenerative braking , and are well suited to steeply graded routes, and the first main-line three-phase locomotives were supplied by Brown (by then in partnership with Walter Boveri ) in 1899 on

7656-552: The forbearance of the federal government and other lenders allowed them to keep operating through the Great Depression and increased competition from trucking. For a time, the railroad ran two trains a week, and on other days employees worked on their farms. In 1940, the railroad had to stop running trains between Mechanicsville and Forrest Hall because of poor maintenance and later that year it sought, and received, permission to abandon that segment. On June 1, 1942,

7772-724: The future. Construction of the trail started in 2005 and Phase I, running one mile from MD Route 236 in New Market, MD to the Northern County Senior Center in Charlotte Hall, was officially opened on June 3, 2006. Phase II, from the Northern County Senior Center to Deborah Drive just inside Charles County opened in October, 2008. Work on Phase V, a disconnected section in south Mechanicsville from Baggett Park to near MD Route 5, broke ground in 2010 and

7888-519: The grants that would allow work from the water tower at 24501 Three Notch Road in Hollywood to the Sturbridge Apartments section just south of FDR Boulevard. Trail sections from John V. Baggett Park to South Sandgates Road, and from Rescue Lane to FDR Boulevard will be built off of the right-of-way, because there the right-of-way is used for the southbound lanes of MD-235. Originally the county planned to acquire additional land to replace

8004-721: The last train ran south of Hughesville in 1965. On June 26, 1970, 28 miles of the ROW in the county was purchased by St. Mary's County for a utility right-of-way. By 1977, they had given the Southern Maryland Electric Company a lease allowing overhead electric lines and started planning to use part of the ROW to Part of the ROW was used to widen MD-5/MD-235. Two years later they created the Hughesville-Lexington Park Railway Corridor Commission to implement

8120-492: The late 20th century, the county sold numerous easements across the right-of-way to adjacent landowners and beneath 2.5 miles of it to the Washington Gas Light Company. In 1998, there was a state bill that would have required that the right-of-way be proposed for a light rail line to the then-proposed Branch Avenue Metro station, but the bill didn't pass and the effort never got started. In 2006

8236-483: The lightly used line between Brandywine and Mechanicsville, the railroad went into default and in 1886 it was forcibly sold for $ 75,000 to a syndicate of Boston investors, who reincorporated it as the Washington & Potomac Railroad Company. The Southern Maryland Railroad was eventually sold to a new company called the Washington & Potomac Railroad (W&P) on April 1, 1886, and trains continued to run until

8352-1230: The limit being regarded at 200 to 350 kilometres per hour (120 to 220 mph). High-speed trains are used mostly for long-haul service and most systems are in Western Europe and East Asia. Magnetic levitation trains such as the Shanghai maglev train use under-riding magnets which attract themselves upward towards the underside of a guideway and this line has achieved somewhat higher peak speeds in day-to-day operation than conventional high-speed railways, although only over short distances. Due to their heightened speeds, route alignments for high-speed rail tend to have broader curves than conventional railways, but may have steeper grades that are more easily climbed by trains with large kinetic energy. High kinetic energy translates to higher horsepower-to-ton ratios (e.g. 20 horsepower per short ton or 16 kilowatts per tonne); this allows trains to accelerate and maintain higher speeds and negotiate steep grades as momentum builds up and recovered in downgrades (reducing cut and fill and tunnelling requirements). Since lateral forces act on curves, curvatures are designed with

8468-526: The line dwindled. In 1962, the Pennsy built a spur off of the line from the north side of Hughesville to the new Chalk Point Generating Station to deliver coal, bringing renewed value to the northern 11.5 miles of track. This track is called the Herbert Subdivision, while the source of the name is not confirmed, one source attributes it to John C. Herbert, who was a Vice-President of PEPCO at

8584-429: The locomotive-hauled train's drawbacks to be removed, since the locomotive need not be moved to the front of the train each time the train changes direction. A railroad car is a vehicle used for the haulage of either passengers or freight. A multiple unit has powered wheels throughout the whole train. These are used for rapid transit and tram systems, as well as many both short- and long-haul passenger trains. A railcar

8700-517: The main portion of the B&O to the new line to New York through a series of tunnels around the edges of Baltimore's downtown. Electricity quickly became the power supply of choice for subways, abetted by the Sprague's invention of multiple-unit train control in 1897. By the early 1900s most street railways were electrified. The London Underground , the world's oldest underground railway, opened in 1863, and it began operating electric services using

8816-433: The mid-1920s. The Soviet Union operated three experimental units of different designs since late 1925, though only one of them (the E el-2 ) proved technically viable. A significant breakthrough occurred in 1914, when Hermann Lemp , a General Electric electrical engineer, developed and patented a reliable direct current electrical control system (subsequent improvements were also patented by Lemp). Lemp's design used

8932-496: The mid-1970 and SMECO put transmission lines on the right-of way. The State Roads Commission had been trying to acquire part of the ROW for use expanding SR-235 since 1959, and when the county purchased it in 1970, the SRC got the right to use whatever portions it needed in exchange for financing the replacement of the lost section of utility corridor. The highway was widened onto the railroad ROW in three parts in 1973, 1982 and 1985. In

9048-442: The military school in Charlotte Hall and also pulp, wood, lumber and farm products outbound and merchandise, fertilizer, machinery and gasoline inbound. By 1920, the struggling WB&PL was unable to make payments on the principle of its loan to the federal government and quit paying interest in 1932, despite being exempt from state taxes. However "the perseverance and personal sacrifice of the management and stockholders" along with

9164-590: The new owners again planned to extend the railroad to Esperanza. Watson tried to extend the rail line, but money from French investors fell through in 1911 and again in 1912 because of the war in Turkey . Owners of the competing Washington and Tidewater railroad, tried to get the state to force Watson to either build more rail or allow them to - as under Maryland law he was required to build 5 miles of rail by November 1914. For years afterward, residents of St. Mary's County and owners of other chartered railroads tried to get

9280-412: The noise they made on the tracks. There are many references to their use in central Europe in the 16th century. Such a transport system was later used by German miners at Caldbeck , Cumbria , England, perhaps from the 1560s. A wagonway was built at Prescot , near Liverpool , sometime around 1600, possibly as early as 1594. Owned by Philip Layton, the line carried coal from a pit near Prescot Hall to

9396-578: The option to purchase it. In 1968 they struck a deal with the Southern Maryland Electric Cooperative (SMECO), where SMECO provided the $ 225,000 needed to purchase it, and in return they were granted a utility easement on the corridor. On June 26, 1970, the St. Mary's County Commissioners purchased 28 miles of the abandoned right-of-way from Hughesville to Patuxent River for a utility corridor. The tracks were removed in

9512-525: The possibility of a smaller engine that might be used to power a vehicle. Following his patent, Watt's employee William Murdoch produced a working model of a self-propelled steam carriage in that year. The first full-scale working railway steam locomotive was built in the United Kingdom in 1804 by Richard Trevithick , a British engineer born in Cornwall . This used high-pressure steam to drive

9628-583: The purpose of constructing, maintaining, and working a railroad from some point in Prince George’s County to Point Lookout.” The planned right-of-way ran along the peninsula created by two rivers: the Potomac and Patuxent . The company's founders hoped that a rail line from the major north-south Potomac River crossings into Virginia near Washington, D.C., to a port on the Patuxent River near

9744-420: The railroad property taken in order to maintain the linear continuity of the trail, but the delay in building those sections seems to indicate they did not. 38°30′44″N 76°46′30″W  /  38.512176°N 76.775067°W  / 38.512176; -76.775067 Washington, Brandywine and Point Lookout Railroad The Washington, Brandywine & Point Lookout Railroad (WB&PL) (originally,

9860-564: The recommendations from that study, including building a railtrail along it. Talk of constructing a hiking/biking trail on the railroad right-of-way started almost immediately, but planning for the trail wouldn't start for 30 years. In 1998, the state led the Hughesville to Lexington Park Right-of-Way Preservation Study to decided what to do with the right-of-way and determined that the right-of-way should be preserved for future light rail or rapid transit usage, perhaps as far as 50 years into

9976-642: The road to Point Lookout. Competing railroads, like the Washington and Seaboard Railroad which was chartered in 1898 to build a line from Hyattsville to Point Lookout, fought efforts to get extensions and tried to undermine funding. After their attempt to get an extension on the deadline was killed by the Maryland House in March of 1900, the Union Trust Company foreclosed on the railroad, it was put in receivership and then forcibly auctioned off on

10092-558: The route for commuter rail and found it to be circuitous, slow, and costly. In 1965, with the Cedar Point branch in bad shape, the PRR stopped running trains on it. In 1966, the Navy said it no longer needed the line and the line south of Hughesville was declared government excess. When train operation ceased on the section from Hughesville to Patuxent, it was offered for sale by the GSA , and St. Mary's County moved quickly to obtain

10208-475: The section. In 1903, the WP&CR sought to revive the SMR's rights to enter the District. In 1905, the railroad started acquiring right-of-way to extend the railroad to Esperanza, where the Navy was considering a base across from Drum Point, but no work was ever done. In November 1909, the railroad went into foreclosure and was purchased by Henry Winfield Watson who brought in Edgar A. and John P. Poe and

10324-441: The standard for railways. Cast iron used in rails proved unsatisfactory because it was brittle and broke under heavy loads. The wrought iron invented by John Birkinshaw in 1820 replaced cast iron. Wrought iron, usually simply referred to as "iron", was a ductile material that could undergo considerable deformation before breaking, making it more suitable for iron rails. But iron was expensive to produce until Henry Cort patented

10440-467: The state and county began to build a rail trail, the Three Notch Trail , on the right-of-way. Original line: pre-1926 In 1926, the line was extended to Forrest Hall but then that section was abandoned in 1940 In 1942, the federal government took over operations of the railroad, rehabilitated it and extended the line adding these stops: After 1954: Pennsylvania Railroad operation When

10556-458: The station's band playing music. The Navy chose not to dispose of the railroad, to leave it "available for prompt return to the Government should occasion arise." and later that year, the PRR took control. It continued to run a weekly train through St. Mary's and used the line to deliver aviation fuel to the base. However, when fuel started coming in by barge in 1966, the importance of

10672-575: The steps of courthouse in Upper Marlboro in July for $ 100,000. After the Washington and Potomac was sold, there were many people interested in acquiring its assets and trying to connect it to Point Lookout and its strategic location and deep water, included a group headed by John Prentiss Poe and John's sons Edgar A. Poe and Johnny Poe . But the group that secured the company in 1901, composed of Philadelphia capitalists called their corporation

10788-493: The summer of 1922, but work stalled and the extension only made it as far as Forrest Hall, where a new station opened in 1926. Rains in August 1928 caused three washouts, which halted service for two months. In that same year, the railroad ended passenger service because it was no longer profitable. The railroad helped carry material for building the paved highway (which brought more competition from trucks), schools and repairing

10904-475: The time, was Liverpool and Manchester Railway , built in 1830. Steam power continued to be the dominant power system in railways around the world for more than a century. The first known electric locomotive was built in 1837 by chemist Robert Davidson of Aberdeen in Scotland, and it was powered by galvanic cells (batteries). Thus it was also the earliest battery-electric locomotive. Davidson later built

11020-515: The time. Chalk Point operator GenOn Energy Holdings closed the two coal-fired units at the plant in June 2021. The plant is scheduled for full decommissioning in 2027. Without coal trains there are no more regular customers on the subdivision and in 2022 the Chalk Point switchers were moved out of state. It has been suggested that the line be used for transit, but a 2009 study considered

11136-543: The track. Propulsion for the train is provided by a separate locomotive or from individual motors in self-propelled multiple units. Most trains carry a revenue load, although non-revenue cars exist for the railway's own use, such as for maintenance-of-way purposes. The engine driver (engineer in North America) controls the locomotive or other power cars, although people movers and some rapid transits are under automatic control. Traditionally, trains are pulled using

11252-471: The transport of ore tubs to and from mines and soon became popular in Europe. Such an operation was illustrated in Germany in 1556 by Georgius Agricola in his work De re metallica . This line used "Hund" carts with unflanged wheels running on wooden planks and a vertical pin on the truck fitting into the gap between the planks to keep it going the right way. The miners called the wagons Hunde ("dogs") from

11368-629: The wheels on track. For example, evidence indicates that a 6 to 8.5 km long Diolkos paved trackway transported boats across the Isthmus of Corinth in Greece from around 600 BC. The Diolkos was in use for over 650 years, until at least the 1st century AD. Paved trackways were also later built in Roman Egypt . In 1515, Cardinal Matthäus Lang wrote a description of the Reisszug ,

11484-622: The world in 1825, although it used both horse power and steam power on different runs. In 1829, he built the locomotive Rocket , which entered in and won the Rainhill Trials . This success led to Stephenson establishing his company as the pre-eminent builder of steam locomotives for railways in Great Britain and Ireland, the United States, and much of Europe. The first public railway which used only steam locomotives, all

11600-512: Was a soft material that contained slag or dross . The softness and dross tended to make iron rails distort and delaminate and they lasted less than 10 years. Sometimes they lasted as little as one year under high traffic. All these developments in the production of iron eventually led to the replacement of composite wood/iron rails with superior all-iron rails. The introduction of the Bessemer process , enabling steel to be made inexpensively, led to

11716-416: Was abandoned and removed, and this area has since been repurposed for a highway, roads, a utility corridor, and a bike trail. The section from Brandywine to Hughesville, extending to Chalk Point, remains in use, though infrequently, as the plant ceased using coal in 2022. Planning for a railroad to Point Lookout started in 1866. The Southern Maryland Railroad (SMR) was incorporated on March 20, 1868, “for

11832-602: Was accomplished by the distribution of weight between a number of wheels. Puffing Billy is now on display in the Science Museum in London, and is the oldest locomotive in existence. In 1814, George Stephenson , inspired by the early locomotives of Trevithick, Murray and Hedley, persuaded the manager of the Killingworth colliery where he worked to allow him to build a steam-powered machine. Stephenson played

11948-514: Was built by Siemens. The tram ran on 180 volts DC, which was supplied by running rails. In 1891 the track was equipped with an overhead wire and the line was extended to Berlin-Lichterfelde West station . The Volk's Electric Railway opened in 1883 in Brighton , England. The railway is still operational, thus making it the oldest operational electric railway in the world. Also in 1883, Mödling and Hinterbrühl Tram opened near Vienna in Austria. It

12064-706: Was built in 1758, later became the world's oldest operational railway (other than funiculars), albeit now in an upgraded form. In 1764, the first railway in the Americas was built in Lewiston, New York . In the late 1760s, the Coalbrookdale Company began to fix plates of cast iron to the upper surface of the wooden rails. This allowed a variation of gauge to be used. At first only balloon loops could be used for turning, but later, movable points were taken into use that allowed for switching. A system

12180-399: Was built in 2005 as part of the adjacent South Plaza Shopping Center. The northernmost piece, from FDR Boulevard to the driveway of the electrical power substation about 750 feet south along Three Notch Road/MD-235, was built around 2010 as part of the nearby Sturbridge Homes project. And the southernmost piece, which is the longest one at ~3400 feet long, runs north from Chancellors Run Road to

12296-567: Was complete in the spring of 2011. Phase VI, at first delayed due to a conflict about how it would pass through the property of Immaculate Conception Church, was completed in 2016. This section passes through Mechanicsville and closed the gap between Phase I and Phase V. Phase III, a 2-mile long section from Chancellors Run in California, MD to FDR Boulevard in Wildewood, MD has been partially constructed in pieces by developers. The central piece, stretching about 950 feet north from Old Rolling Road,

12412-465: Was delayed by the Panic of 1873 . SMR officials frequently promised to complete the work, but had laid down no rails or ties when it was forced into receivership in 1875. In 1876, the SMR was investigated for defrauding the state of Maryland, the sole shareholder in the company. In 1874, the U.S. Naval Board reported that Point Lookout, with its key location and deep water, would be a good location for

12528-416: Was formed to purchase it. That company, owned by locals along the line, was unable to raise the full amount needed so the federal government lent them $ 50,000, on the grounds of military necessity and on the condition that the government would oversee and supervise operations of the railroad. The purchase was completed in July 1918. By 1919, trains were running again, using a gasoline engine for passengers and

12644-543: Was graded in 1872-1873 and built in 1881-1883 by the Southern Maryland Railroad with intentions to take it all the way to Point Lookout in Scotland, MD . It was extended 2.5 miles in the 1920s to south Mechanicsville when it was the Washington, Brandywine & Point Lookout Railroad. It was extended again in 1942, after the Navy took control of it, to the Naval Air Station Patuxent River and

12760-548: Was introduced in which unflanged wheels ran on L-shaped metal plates, which came to be known as plateways . John Curr , a Sheffield colliery manager, invented this flanged rail in 1787, though the exact date of this is disputed. The plate rail was taken up by Benjamin Outram for wagonways serving his canals, manufacturing them at his Butterley ironworks . In 1803, William Jessop opened the Surrey Iron Railway ,

12876-489: Was light enough to not break the edge-rails track and solved the problem of adhesion by a cog-wheel using teeth cast on the side of one of the rails. Thus it was also the first rack railway . This was followed in 1813 by the locomotive Puffing Billy built by Christopher Blackett and William Hedley for the Wylam Colliery Railway, the first successful locomotive running by adhesion only. This

12992-422: Was officially called the U.S. Naval Air Station Railroad, but sometimes by other names including the Brandywine and Cedar Point Railroad. When operating the train became too expensive, passenger service was ended in 1949 and the Navy stopped running trains in 1954. The Pennsylvania Railroad continued using the line to deliver aviation fuel into the 1960s but, when that started being brought by barge, service ended and

13108-411: Was placed into receivership under control of the W&P. The WC&PL was sold at public auction in 1895 for $ 2500. The WC&PL continued as an entity, owning land in the District of Columbia as late as 1935, but it was done running trains or building rail. The W&P was unable to expand the rail line in any direction due to lack of funding and a constant need to extend the deadline to complete

13224-762: Was tested on the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway in September of the following year, but the limited power from batteries prevented its general use. It was destroyed by railway workers, who saw it as a threat to their job security. By the middle of the nineteenth century most european countries had military uses for railways. Werner von Siemens demonstrated an electric railway in 1879 in Berlin. The world's first electric tram line, Gross-Lichterfelde Tramway , opened in Lichterfelde near Berlin , Germany, in 1881. It

13340-580: Was the first tram line in the world in regular service powered from an overhead line. Five years later, in the U.S. electric trolleys were pioneered in 1888 on the Richmond Union Passenger Railway , using equipment designed by Frank J. Sprague . The first use of electrification on a main line was on a four-mile section of the Baltimore Belt Line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O) in 1895 connecting

13456-719: Was turned over to the Air Force just before it burned. Railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport ) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in tracks , which usually consist of two parallel steel rails . Rail transport is one of the two primary means of land transport , next to road transport . It is used for about 8% of passenger and freight transport globally, thanks to its energy efficiency and potentially high speed . Rolling stock on rails generally encounters lower frictional resistance than rubber-tyred road vehicles, allowing rail cars to be coupled into longer trains . Power

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