Existing comment:
Rail History:
By the time of the Civil War, the importance of railroads, and especially a connection to Washington, had been realized. President Abraham Lincoln endorsed the construction of the Metropolitan Branch Line -- which connected Washington, DC with the main line of the Baltimore & Ohio (B&O) Railroad, the first long-distance railroad in the US.
The 42.5-mile line, completed in 1873, originally had nine stops: "Terra Cotta, Silver Spring, Knowles, Rockville, Gaithersburg, Germantown, Boyd's, Dickerson's, and Tuscarora." Six trains ran each way, three local and three express. Service quickly expanded to 28 stops as the B&O added connections for mills, dairy farms and burgeoning suburban developments. The express trains took one hour and 20 minutes to go from Washington to Point of Rocks, and the locals a half-hour longer. By 1893 the railroad hit its high point with 18 passenger trains a day, a figure that would continue through the 1920s.
With the establishment of the railroad, for the firs time the country became accessible to the city, and the markets of DC became accessible to the farmers to sell perishable goods such as garden produce, fruit and milk.
The railroad also brought many new residents to the area and transformed the life of the city. Takoma Park, Linden, Woodside, Forest Glen, Capitol View, Kensington and Garret Park were all park of a brand-new concept in the 1880s -- railroad suburbs. |