at the start of the Civil War, the Alexandria and Washington Railroad ran from Long Bridge to Alexandria, with no direct track connection to any other railroad
Source: Library of Congress, Sketch of the seat of war in Alexandria & Fairfax Cos. (by V. P. Corbett, 1861)
Soon after the retrocession of Alexandria back to Virginia in 1847, Northern Virginia investors financed construction of railroads from their port city to the Virginia Piedmont and Shenandoah Valley. Trains offered lower transportation costs, so farmers shipped to Aleandria and purchased finished goods from merchants in that city.
Building a railroad northwest of the city parallel to the Potomac River, or south along the Fall Line to Fredericksburg, were low priorities. Those routes would not boost business as much as linking the port to the coal fields in Hampshire County or to the wheat farms in Rockbridge County.
It was not until February 27, 1854 that the General Assembly granted a charter for the Alexandria and Washington Railroad, including the right to purchase the Alexandria Canal Company and the Alexandria and Washington Turnpike. The US Congress authorized construction within the District of Columbia, and track from the northern end of the Long Bridge to a connection with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was completed in 1855.
The railroad built from Alexandria to Jackson City on the southern end of Long Bridge in 1857. Operations started on January 1, 1858.
Freight had to be unloaded from railroad cars, placed on wagons to cross Long Bridge, and then be reloaded onto railroad cars on the other end. There was minimal space for laying track on the bridge itself, and it was not believed to be strong enough to support locomotives. The absence of rails across Long Bridge created an inefficient gap in the Alexandria and Washington Railroad. Long Bridge was a chokepoint from the beginning, and long before the Commonwealth of Virginia decided to build a second bridge in 2020 to increase passenger rail capacity.
the Alexandria and Washington Railroad started operations three years before the Civil War
Source: Library of Congress, [Map of Alexandria, Virginia] (by Robert Knox Sneden, 1861-65)
The initial Alexandria and Washington Railroad was built using an innovative technology patented by James S. French, president of the railroad. The iron straps used for rails were laid on stringers notched into the ties ("sleepers"), and the iron strap was wide extend beyond the edge of the stringer. The locomotive wheels were designed to engage the bottom of the iron strap, providing greater adhesion and permitting trains to move up steeper grades with lighter locomotives. The T-shaped rail had been developed two decades earlier, but iron strap rail was still in common use.
A test of James S. French's design had been conducted earlier in Manchester, south of Richmond. That test was successful, but the unique technology was quickly abandoned on the Alexandria and Washington Railroad.1
1
William Bender Wilson, History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Volume 1, Sherman Press, 1895, pp.346-353, pp.429-433, pp.435-437 https://books.google.com/books?id=qj9N-eWi71YC; "Timeline of Washington, D.C. Railroad History," Washington DC Chapter National Railway Historical Society, http://www.dcnrhs.org/learn/washington-d-c-railroad-history/timeline-of-washington-d-c-railroad-history; "An Archeological Assessment of the Southern Plaza Project Area Alexandria, Virginia," John Milner Associates, 1988, p.12, https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/historic/info/archaeology/SiteReportSeifertSouthernPlazaUSMRR.pdf; John F. Stover, American Railroads, University of Chicago Press, 1997, p.21, https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/aPNQXN9Onv4C (last checked May 29, 2020)
The Alexandria and Washington Railroad was not profitable at the end of the 1850's. Alexander Hay, from Philadelphia, loaned money to James French. He obtained in the arrangement the authority over other unpaid debts owed by the business.
On May 24, 1861, at the start of the Civil War, Union troops occupied Alexandria. James S. French was a Confederate sympathizer, unwilling to cooperate with the invading army. He had the Alexandria and Washington Railroad's rolling stock hauled to the Orange and Alexandria (O&A) Railroad, where they could get to Manassas and avoid capture by the Union forces. The logistics of the equipment transfer of equipment must have required quick action, since no track linked the Alexandria and Washington Railroad terminal on Fayette Street to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad terminal a block away.
The US military immediately seized the Alexandria and Washington Railroad. All the rails were removed, and the roadbed was converted into a path for troops and wagons. Since trains were more efficient in moving supplies to support the forces occupying Alexandria and in nearby camps, the US Military Railroad chose to rebuild the railroad by February, 1862. To simplify operations, the US Military Railroad connected the Alexandria and Washington Railroad tracks to the Orange and Alexandria Railroad and created the first Alexandria Junction.
Track was also placed on the Long Bridge in 1862, allowing rail cars loaded with freight to cross the river. Because the bridge was so light, engineers planned to use horses rather than heavy locomotives to pull the loaded cars across the bridge. After just one day, the horses were replaced with locomotives. Freight cars could finally move directly from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad within the District to Alexandria, where the US Military Railroad was operating primarily on the tracks of the Orange and Alexandria Railroad.1
William Bender Wilson, History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, With Plan of Organization, Portraits of Officials and Biographical Sketches, Henry T. Coates (publisher), 1899, pp.435-437, https://www.google.com/books/edition/History_of_the_Pennsylvania_Railroad_Com/qj9N-eWi71YC? (last checked December 27, 2020)
In 1862, after the original stockholders and managers had moved into parts of Virginia controlled by the Confederate state government, the Alexandria and Washington Railroad was "sold" by a trustee to Alexander Hay. Since James French had fled south, he could not protect his claim to the railroad until after 1865. Hay and French ended up engaging in protracted legal disputes in Virginia, the District of Columbia, and Pennsylvania. The legal status of the Alexandria and Washington Railroad remained complicated until 1890.
In 1862, Hay also got the pro-Union Restored Government of Virginia, based in Wheeling instead of Richmond, to charter a new railroad with the same rights as the Alexandria and Washington Railroad. The Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad essentially replaced the 1854 Alexandria and Washington Railroad. In 1863 the pro-Union investors in the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad also got a charter from the US Congress to build track in the District of Columbia. That track connected the north end of Long Bridge to the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot, located where the National Gallery of Art now stands.
The Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad was granted the right to lay track on a new Long Bridge across the Potomac River, built parallel to the old Long Bridge. Congressional action was required; the Virginia General Assembly meeting in Wheeling could not authorize that new bridge because all of the Potomac River beyond the high water mark was within the District of Columbia.
in 1861, the Washington and Alexandria Railroad (red line) did not have tracks across Long Bridge
Source: Library of Congress, Topographical map of Virginia between Washington and Manassas Junction (by Charles Magnus, c.1861)
during the Civil War, the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad was authorized to operate over a new Long Bridge
Source: The Photographic History of the Civil War, Political Objectives - Washington (p.123)
The General Assembly of the pro-Union Restored Government of Virginia moved to Alexandria when the new state of West Virginia was created in 1863. On February 3, 1864, the General Assembly for the "loyal" government of Virginia, meeting in Alexandria, chartered the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railroad. That new company was owned by the same Union-supporting investors who had purchased the Alexandria and Washington Railroad and obtained a charter for the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad in 1862.
The Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railroad was granted the right to extend the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad further south from Alexandria to a planned junction with the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad near Fredricksburg.
After the conclusion of the Civil War, James French and another original investor in the Alexandria and Washington Railroad sued in a Virginia court and regained control, based on their 1854 charter. The state court voided the 1862 bankruptcy sale, and it also ruled that the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad had never been a legal corporation in Virginia.
French renamed his recovered property the Washington and Alexandria Railway, and he advanced an even more ambitious claim that he was entitled to all the assets of the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad. He sued to gain control over the track laid on the Long Bridge during the Civil War, and the short section of track in Washington, DC still controlled by the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad.
A Federal court, with a judge less sympathetic to ex-Confederate leaders than the Virginia state court, rejected that claim. The Federal judge determined that the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad within the District of Columbia was a separate corporation from the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad within Virginia. Had the Federal court ruled otherwise, former Confederates would have gained control over valuable track that had been financed by Union-sympathizing investors during the Civil War.1
William Bender Wilson, History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Volume 1, Sherman Press, 1895, p.343, pp.352-353, pp.435-437, https://books.google.com/books?id=qj9N-eWi71YC; "An Archeological Assessment of the Southern Plaza Project Area Alexandria, Virginia," John Milner Associates, 1988, pp.16-17, https://www.alexandriava.gov/uploadedFiles/historic/info/archaeology/SiteReportSeifertSouthernPlazaUSMRR.pdf; "The Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad Co. vs. D. R. Martin et al," Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, 7 D.C. 120 (1870), https://cite.case.law/dc/7/120/; Robert Cohen, "History of the Long Railroad Bridge Crossing Across the Potomac River," Washington DC Chapter National Railway Historical Society, 2003, http://www.dcnrhs.org/learn/washington-d-c-railroad-history/history-of-the-long-bridge; "An Act to extend the Charter of the Alexandria and Washington Railroad Company, and for other Purposes," US Congress, 1863, https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/37th-congress/session-3/c37s3ch110.pdf; Albert J. Churella, The Pennsylvania Railroad, Volume 1: Building an Empire, 1846-1917, University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012, pp.431-432, https://books.google.com/books?id=OXdjEZke74QC; Herbert H. Harwood Jr., Rails to the Blue Ridge: The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, 1847-1968, Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority, 2000, p.14, https://www.google.com/books/edition/_/2GvQAAAACAAJ; Fairfax Harrison, A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company, 1901, p.1476, pp.1479-81, pp.1500-1501, https://books.google.com/books/about/A_History_of_the_Legal_Development_of_th.html?id=0IkjAQAAMAAJ; "French v. Hay," 89 U.S. 22 Wall. 250 250 (1874), https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/89/250/ (last checked August 2, 2020)
the Washington and Alexandria Railroad was the rail link between Long Bridge and Alexandria
Source: Library of Congress, Plan of the city of Washington: the capitol [sic] of the United States of America (by S. Augustus Mitchell, 1874)`
Though the Virginia investors gained legal control of the Washington and Alexandria Railway, they lacked the capital to maintain and operate it after the Civil War. The Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad leased the Washington and Alexandria Railway, the Long Bridge, and the tracks of the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad within the District of Columbia. There was little profit in a railroad connection between Washington, DC and Alexandria, but the Baltimore and Ohio (B&O) Railroad had expansion plans. It hoped to gain control of additional railroads with track going deep into the southern states while the cost of acquisitions were low, and to create a larger network which would bring business to Baltimore.
The Pennsylvania Railroad had the same idea, however. In 1870 it maneuvered successfully in the US Congress to get control of the Long Bridge across the Potomac River, though it had to allow use by other railroads. By 1872, the Pennsylvania had also gained control over the Washington and Alexandria Railway on the southern end of Long Bridge.
The Pennsylvania Railroad's subsidiary, the Baltimore & Potomac (B&P) Railroad, arranged a deal with the District of Columbia goverment to block the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad from running trains from its depot in Washington, DC to Long Bridge on the Washington, Alexandria and Georgetown Railroad track.
In 1872, Alexander "Boss" Shepherd determined that the bumps in District of Columbia roads associated with the railroad tracks to Long Bridge had to be eliminated. One night he ordered a crew of Irish workers to bury the rails used by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad under 18" of dirt. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad immediately mobilized a crew of African-American workers and brought them by train to 6th Street. They cleared the dirt off the rails as fast as Boss Shepherd's crew covered them. At one point the African-American workers were pushing dirt off the shovels of their Irish opponents before it could be tossed onto the rails, and kept the track open between Long Bridge and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad depot.
That Baltimore and Ohio Railroad victory was short-lived. "Boss" Shepherd managed a few weeks later to have the tracks completely removed, severing the railroad's connection to the northern end of Long Bridge.
With "Boss" Shepherd's support, the Baltimore & Potomac Railroad then laid new track from Long Bridge north to its depot, and opened a gran station there in 1873. The Pennsylvania Railroad had exclusive control over the connection to Alexandria, without any opportunity for the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad to use the track. (The Baltimore & Potomac Railroad station on the Mall was the location where an assassin shot President James Garfield in 1881, and was torn down after Union Station opened in 1907.)1
William Bender Wilson, History of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Volume 1, Sherman Press, 1895, pp.352-353, https://books.google.com/books?id=qj9N-eWi71YC; Robert Cohen, "History of the Long Railroad Bridge Crossing Across the Potomac River," Washington DC Chapter National Railway Historical Society, 2003, http://www.dcnrhs.org/learn/washington-d-c-railroad-history/history-of-the-long-bridge; "The Short-Lived Baltimore & Potomac Railroad Station on the National Mall," WETA - Boundary Stones local history blog, June 29, 2016, https://boundarystones.weta.org/2016/06/29/short-lived-baltimore-potomac-railroad-station-national-mall (last checked July 27, 2020)
The Pennsylvania Railroad also acquired control of the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway. In 1872, it used that charter to build track south from Long Bridge to Quantico. Long Bridge carried only one track, but on the Virginia side the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad subsidiary of the Pennsylvania Railroad ended up operating two tracks between Long Bridge and Alexandria. Tracks of the Washington and Alexandria Railway and the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway ran parallel to each other.
The Baltimore and Potomac Railroad maintained those two tracks between the Potomac River and Alexandria as an insurance policy. The complicated legal claims regarding ownership of the Alexandria and Washington Railroad/Washington and Alexandria Railway created the risk that the Pennsylvania could lose control of it. If the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad managed to acquire the Washington and Alexandria Railway, it would not make any money from an isolated stretch of rail south of Long Bridge - but it could block the Pennsylvania Railroad from using it. The Pennsylvania Railroad mitigated that risk by maintaining the parallel track of the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway between Long Bridge and Alexandria.
The Pennsylvania Railroad kept the Washington and Alexandria Railway and the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway as separate corporations until it was clear that there would be no futher legal procedings threatening its ownership. In 1887, the Pennsylvania Railroad finally purchased all claims to the outstanding stock of the Washington and Alexandria Railway.1
H. W. Schotter, The growth and development of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, Press of Allen, Lane & Scott, 1927, pp.217-218, https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc1.$b38943 (last checked July 2, 2020)
In 1890, the Washington and Alexandria Railway and the Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway finally were consolidated to form the Washington Southern Railway. The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad was granted control over the track in 1901, and it became part of CSX in 1991.1
Fairfax Harrison, A History of the Legal Development of the Railroad System of Southern Railway Company, 1901, pp.1500-1501, https://books.google.com/books/about/A_History_of_the_Legal_Development_of_th.html?id=0IkjAQAAMAAJ; "Washington Southern Railway," Annual Report, Virginia, Railroad Commissioner, 1898, pp.3-4, p.30, https://books.google.com/books?id=mCUaAQAAIAAJ; "Talking Deals; CSX and Virginia Split a Company," New York Times, July 18, 1991, https://www.nytimes.com/1991/07/18/business/talking-deals-csx-and-virginia-split-a-company.html (last checked August 2, 2020)
The Alexandria and Washington Railroad provided the first connection between Long Bridge and Alexandria, but its charter was not used for the connection south to Fredericksburg. The Alexandria and Fredericksburg Railway built south from the Potomac River to Quantico. Two other railroads built north from Fredericksburg to Quantico.
The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac (RF&P) Railroad built a 10-mile branch line north from its track near Aquia Landing. Its charter from the General Assembly limited construction of branch lines to just 10 miles, and the meeting point at Quantico was almost 12 miles away. A separate corporation, the Potomac Railroad, provided the solution. The Richmond, Fredericksburg and Potomac Railroad used the charter of the Potomac Railroad to build the last 1.7 miles of additional track north of the RF&P's endpoint to Quantico.1
Charles Thomas, "The Development of the Railroads in Washington," The Railway and Locomotive Historical Society Bulletin, Number 105 (October 1961), p.28, https://www.jstor.org/stable/43520286; "Washington Southern Railway," Annual Report, Virginia, Railroad Commissioner, 1898, p.20, https://books.google.com/books?id=mCUaAQAAIAAJ (last checked June 2, 2020)
Completion of track to Quantico in 1872 finally established a direct rail connection between all of the Fall Line cities in Virginia, from Alexandria to Emporia.
the route of the Alexandria and Washington Railroad has been used by different railroads since 1857
Source: Library of Congress, Atlas of fifteen miles around Washington, including the counties of Fairfax and Alexandria, Virginia (by Griffith Morgan Hopkins Jr., 1879)
Union troops rebuilt the Alexandria and Washington Railroad up to Long Bridge
Source: National Archives, Extract of Military Map of Northeast Virginia, Showing Forts and Roads (1865)