Hi all,
Resently took a drive from DC through the NW suburbs, including Point of Rocks and across the Potomac. Saw lots of railroad relics that piqued my interest; I've since done some reading, and realized I had basically followed the entire route of the B&O's old Metropolitan Branch (now CSX/MARC), and this is indeed the same line that literally runs by my current home.
For any B&O fans here - I'm interested in what sort of traffic the Metropolitan branch saw, aside from commuter/passenger service? What freight would go on the Met vs the old main line to the north (bypassing DC)? Was this mainly local traffic in/out of DC and its suburbs, or was there substantial through traffic as well?
I get the impression that the B&O never fully supported the ports @ Georgetown or Alexandria (possibly due to competing business interests in Baltimore, the heart of the railroad), but that there would have been quite a bit of agricultural (wheat, dairy, produce), building material, and energy (coal) freight moving through Washington and the surrounding areas.
Don't forget the through traffic to and from the South via Alexandria, VA. A lot of Fruit Growers reefers would be handled in this traffic, which included a lot of Florida citrus. There was furniture, wood products, tobacco products, and textiles from NC. Kaolin came up from Georgia. Going the other way, coal and any manufactured goods from the Industral North could be found heading into the South. I've barely scratched the surface, and I'm sure others could add a lot to this. I would suggest taking a look at B&O Steam Finale Vol 1 and 2 (NRHS 1986, 1988) and other books to get an idea of the types of cars seen on trains running between Cumberland and Points East.
Tom
Georgetown was served as best as possible. It was just never very big as a port because of topography and its proximity to the capital. Yes, the canal ended there, but the actual river isn't very big at Georgetown. Alexandria was the better seaport. The Potomac is much deeper, deeper closer to shore (both naturally and because of in-fill), and the river is much broader. Recall that the British conducted a commerce raid on Alexandria in 1814, but made no move against Georgetown, despite burning Washington days earlier. Alexandria, a century later, had significant shipbuilding capacity for all-steel oceanic freighters. Georgetown had no such capacity and the only shipbuilding in the District was on the Anacostia.
The B&O did have ferry service at Alexandria before 1906 and a bridge during WWII, but Alexandria was enemy territory as far as the B&O was concerned. While they were a member of the Richmond-Washington Company that ran Potomac Yard, they only had rights over Long Bridge via the Virginia Ave tunnel. Alexandria was handled almost exclusively by the Southern. In fact, the last two customers (the last bowed out in 2013) were on a rump NS spur that didn't connect to any NS tracks and the local had to go over CSX tracks to get there. As best I recall, the RF&P handled customers near what is now Crystal City and in the Alexandria West End, but not Alexandria proper. The impression that I got was that the bulk of the traffic north out of Pot Yard was PRR/Conrail, despite the B&O junction at Benning Yard.
This: http://www.virginiaplaces.org/rail/valleyrail.html is actually a pretty good read about why the Virginia railroads ended up laid out like they did, which was directly because of how the B&O operated and the support of Baltimore as a port (which feeds back into your interests about the B&O's Potomac operations).
Thanks for the replies and link! I don't have room for a full-blown pike currently, so prototype research (along with loco/rolling stock collection) is one of the ways I'm fulfilling my MR interest.
Thinking about building a small shelf/switching layout in the meantime, and Point of Rocks is a likely 'protolance' inspiration at the moment. It has an interchange, dramatic scenery, and a remarkable depot. I'll want to cheat in a couple industries to actually switch of course, but otherwise it's almost perfect.