The Capital Subdivision is a

railroad Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...

line owned and operated by

CSX Transportation CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...

in the U.S. state of

Maryland Maryland ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic region of the United States. It shares borders with Virginia, West Virginia, and the District of Columbia to its south and west; Pennsylvania to its north; ...

and the

District of Columbia ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan ...

. The line runs from near

Baltimore, Maryland Baltimore ( , locally: or ) is the List of municipalities in Maryland, most populous city in the U.S. state of Maryland, fourth most populous city in the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, and List of United States cities by popula ...

, southwest to Washington, D.C., along the former

Baltimore and Ohio Rail Road The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad was the first common carrier railroad and the oldest railroad in the United States, with its first section opening in 1830. Merchants from Baltimore, which had benefited to some extent from the construction of ...

(B&O) Washington Branch. The subdivision's

Alexandria Extension The Alexandria Extension is a short rail line in Washington, D.C. and Prince George's County, Maryland. Its northern portion connects the Capital Subdivision to the RF&P Subdivision, allowing freight trains to avoid Downtown Washington. Its sout ...

provides a connection to

Virginia Virginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeastern regions of the United States, between the East Coast of the United States, Atlantic Coast and the Appalachian Mountains. The geography an ...

and points south.

Route description

The northeast end of the line is at Halethorpe, Maryland, just north of the historic

Thomas Viaduct The Thomas Viaduct spans the Patapsco River and Patapsco Valley between Relay, Maryland and Elkridge, Maryland, USA. It was commissioned by the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O); built between July 4, 1833, and July 4, 1835; and named for Philip ...

, where it meets the Baltimore Terminal Subdivision and the

Old Main Line Subdivision The Old Main Line Subdivision is a railroad line owned and operated by CSX Transportation in the U.S. state of Maryland. The line runs from Relay (outside Baltimore) west to Point of Rocks, and was once the main line of the Baltimore and Ohio Ra ...

. Its southwest end is at the

yard The yard (symbol: yd) is an English unit of length in both the British imperial and US customary systems of measurement equalling 3 feet or 36 inches. Since 1959 it has been by international agreement standardized as exactly 0 ...

north of Union Station, at a junction with the Metropolitan Subdivision and

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

Northeast Corridor The Northeast Corridor (NEC) is an electrified railroad line in the Northeast megalopolis of the United States. Owned primarily by Amtrak, it runs from Boston through Providence, New Haven, Stamford, New York City, Philadelphia, Wilmington, ...

. Between Elkridge and Laurel, the Capital Subdivision's rail alignment forms the border between

Howard Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also prob ...

and Anne Arundel counties, having been built before Howard County was created from western Anne Arundel County in 1844.

MARC Train MARC (Maryland Area Rail Commuter) is a commuter rail system in the Baltimore–Washington metropolitan area. MARC is administered by the Maryland Transit Administration (MTA) and operated under contract by Alstom and Amtrak on track owned by ...

's Camden Line, descended from B&O commuter service between Baltimore and Washington, operates over the entire length of the main line.

History

In 1831 the

Maryland General Assembly The Maryland General Assembly is the state legislature of the U.S. state of Maryland that convenes within the State House in Annapolis. It is a bicameral body: the upper chamber, the Maryland Senate, has 47 representatives and the lower cham ...

authorized the B&O to build a branch from their main line within 8 miles (13 km) of Baltimore, to Washington. As this line would take much business from the parallel turnpikes, especially the Washington and Baltimore Turnpike, the charter specifically allowed those companies to subscribe to the stock of the railroad. Construction began in July 1833, and the line opened on August 25, 1835, splitting from the B&O main line at

Relay A relay Electromechanical relay schematic showing a control coil, four pairs of normally open and one pair of normally closed contacts An automotive-style miniature relay with the dust cover taken off A relay is an electrically operated swit ...

, roughly 7 miles (11 km) from Baltimore. Notable structural features on the original line include the

, the first multi-span

masonry Masonry is the building of structures from individual units, which are often laid in and bound together by mortar; the term ''masonry'' can also refer to the units themselves. The common materials of masonry construction are bricks, building ...

railroad bridge A bridge is a structure built to span a physical obstacle (such as a body of water, valley, road, or rail) without blocking the way underneath. It is constructed for the purpose of providing passage over the obstacle, which is usually somethi ...

in the United States, and the largest bridge in the country when it was completed in 1835; and the earliest example of an

iron Iron () is a chemical element with symbol Fe (from la, ferrum) and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, right in ...

truss bridge A truss bridge is a bridge whose load-bearing superstructure is composed of a truss, a structure of connected elements, usually forming triangular units. The connected elements (typically straight) may be stressed from tension, compression, or ...

Washington depots

Union Station from Columbus Circle, Washington, D

The first B&O passenger station (1835–1851) was located west of the

Capitol A capitol, named after the Capitoline Hill in Rome, is usually a legislative building where a legislature meets and makes laws for its respective political entity. Specific capitols include: * United States Capitol in Washington, D.C. * Numerou ...

, at 2nd Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. In 1851 the

New Jersey Avenue Station The Washington Depot or New Jersey Avenue Station was a train station located in Northwest Washington, D.C., a block north of the Capitol. The train station was also called the B&O Depot as it was served by the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad. It ...

was built at a point slightly north of the Capitol, on New Jersey Avenue NW, in the area now called Union Station Plaza. Trains reached that location via the current location of West Virginia Avenue, street-running trackage on I Street NE and Delaware Avenue, and private

right-of-way Right of way is the legal right, established by grant from a landowner or long usage (i.e. by prescription), to pass along a specific route through property belonging to another. A similar ''right of access'' also exists on land held by a gov ...

just south of the current location of Louisiana Avenue. When the Washington Terminal Company opened the new Union Station in 1907, that alignment was changed to the current routing, partially using the former location of Delaware Avenue.

Acquisition

The

Chesapeake and Ohio Railway The Chesapeake and Ohio Railway was a Class I railroad formed in 1869 in Virginia from several smaller Virginia railroads begun in the 19th century. Led by industrialist Collis P. Huntington, it reached from Virginia's capital city of Richmond ...

acquired control of the B&O in 1962, and the B&O and C&O both became a subsidiaries of the

Chessie System Chessie System, Inc. was a holding company that owned the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O), the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad (B&O), the Western Maryland Railway (WM), and Baltimore and Ohio Chicago Terminal Railroad (B&OCT). Trains operated u ...

in 1973. In 1980 the Chessie System merged with the

Seaboard System The Seaboard System Railroad, Inc. was a US Class I railroad that operated from 1982 to 1986. Since the late 1960s, Seaboard Coast Line Industries had operated the Seaboard Coast Line and its sister railroads—notably the Louisville & Nashv ...

to form CSX Corporation. In 1987 the CSX Corporation merged the B&O into the C&O, then, later that same year, merged the C&O into

(CSXT), which now owns the line.

References

External links