Trolleys Ran Through It

The D.C. Department of Transportation will soon be seeking everyone's approval to begin reconstructing O and P Streets between Wisconsin Avenue and 35th Streets. And for those of you who would like to see the treacherous trolley tracks just paved over with asphalt, forget about it.

O and P Streets, trolley tracks and all, are protected by the Georgetown National Register Historic District/National Historic Landmark act. Thus, DDOT is committed to retaining the historic appearance of the two streets, including retaining and reinstalling the components of the streetcar tracks and the surrounding pavers and curbs. The tracks will be removed, straightened, cleaned, and refinished and then refastened to the yokes.

Yikes! Won't that take like . . . forever?  You are probably right, madam, but that's the way the cookie crumbles in an historic community. And the trolley tracks do represent a significant part of our history. The few blocks of trolley tracks are a reminder that streetcars were a big part of transportation, not only in Georgetown, but throughout the City of Washington. At one point, five streetcar companies provided service in the city. The company that ran trolleys in Georgetown was the Metropolitan Railroad Company, incorporated on July 1, 1864, and tracks reached Georgetown in 1876.

If you look closely at the tracks, you'll notice a third "track" in the center, which is not a track at all, but rather a conduit. A sliding "shoe" on the underside of the trolley carriage ran along this conduit and took electric power from an underground source along the rail.

The Metropolitan, acting on a charge from Congress, began conversion to underground electric power in 1895 and all Metro lines had complied by 1897. Other lines in town used overhead trolley wire and some even used cables.

The trolleys were converted to bus lines and eliminated in the early 1960s. Much of the track in D.C. was removed and sold for scrap. In other places, the track was buried under pavement. The only remaining visible tracks and conduit in the region are in the center of the cobblestone streets in Georgetown.

And now, the DDOT will see to it that the tracks are preserved forever. While they are dangerous in their present state of neglect, it won't always be so.