Electric Trains on the W&OD

Electric Trains on the W&OD (HMQ4)

Location: Leesburg, VA 20175 Loudoun County
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Country: United States of America
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N 39° 6.636', W 77° 34.633'

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Inscription
Electrification arrived in 1912, after the Great Falls & Old Dominion Railroad and the Southern Railway's Bluemont Branch were consolidated into the Washington & Old Dominion Railway. The new owners brought modern interurban trolley cars. Wire strung above the tracks carried electricity from the railroad's own power plant in Rosslyn, Virginia. In 1917 service switched to the local utility company.

By 1939, the year this man was photographed departing a trolley near Bluemont, Virginia, the W&OD had been operating on electricity for 27 years. Aging equipment was badly in need of modernization. In the early 1940s the railroad obtained its first self-propelled diesel-electric and gas-electric engines. Diesel power proved so efficient that by 1944 it had replaced electricity.
Details
HM NumberHMQ4
Series This marker is part of the Washington and Old Dominion Railroad series
Tags
Placed ByThe Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park, Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority
Marker ConditionNo reports yet
Date Added Saturday, September 20th, 2014 at 10:02am PDT -07:00
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Locationbig map
UTM (WGS84 Datum)18S E 277166 N 4332212
Decimal Degrees39.11060000, -77.57721667
Degrees and Decimal MinutesN 39° 6.636', W 77° 34.633'
Degrees, Minutes and Seconds39° 6' 38.16" N, 77° 34' 37.98" W
Driving DirectionsGoogle Maps
Area Code(s)703, 540, 571
Closest Postal AddressAt or near 321 Catoctin Cir SW, Leesburg VA 20175, US
Alternative Maps Google Maps, MapQuest, Bing Maps, Yahoo Maps, MSR Maps, OpenCycleMap, MyTopo Maps, OpenStreetMap

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