Looking for the Old Trolley

The street car network in DC was shut down in the early sixties, putting an end to a history that had started with the horse cars one hundred years before.

The car in the image is the only one still present within Washington boundaries. Only don't look for it on the streets: you'll find the Capital Traction 303 in the National Museum of American History.

There is also a National Capital Trolley Museum, in a suburb of Washington, in Maryland. It has some street cars; only none of them have ever operated in DC. The cars there were brought from Toronto, and from Brussels, if I am exact. I was once there, I took the metro on the Red Line up to Glenmont, then a bus. I bought from there a DVD: all car lines were recorded in a movie in the last year of their existence. There was a cameraman for New York who came each weekend to DC for a whole year and did the job.

There is in Dallas, Texas, a car which looks exactly like the one in the image. I saw it when I was there, it gives free rides and it is full of kids and grandpas. Actually that car operated long time ago in DC and it was transfered to Dallas when Washingtonians abandoned this system of transportation.

One line, the #20, became of special interest for me: the car line from Union Station up to Cabin John Bridge, in Maryland.

The track was following Pennsylvania Avenue, passing by the White House. There was a car stop there, just between the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the Lafayette Park (the park housing the statues of President Jackson, of La Fayette, Kosciuszko, Von Steuben, and Rochambeau). The platforms for that stop were made of wood - they were taken out when a military parade was to take place. Now only pedestrian traffic is allowed in that place.

The cars were running then further on the Pennsylvania Avenue, passing around the Washington Circle toward Georgetown, where the line was continuing on M Street, then Wisconsin Avenue, O and P streets, 36th Street, Prospect Street, and then the cars were running parallel with the Potomac, and with MacArthur Boulevard.

Inside Washington the track was using the conduit system for the electrical current collection, with the power rail between the two running rails. You can still see on the O and P streets remnants of the trackage, with the power rail in the middle. Outside Washington the car was using an overhead line for electrical supply. So #20 cars were conduit cars up to the Prospect Street and trolley cars after they were passing Georgetown University.

I tried to discover the remnants of the track, and this way I explored the Palisades and then the country side up to Cabin John Bridge. The following messages are about what I discovered.

• Old Cartoon
• Brookmont Community Church
• Tracing the Strugatsky Brothers
• The Story of Sycamore Store 
• From Sycamore Island to Sycamore Store 
• The House on Mohican Hills
• The Carousel from Glenn Echo

(Washington, District of Columbia)