Former Railroad spurs in Northern Virginia

As I was driving to my AAU basketball practice at Mt.Vernon High School in Alexandria, I pass under an old railroad bridge on Route 1(Richmond Highway). The tracks have been gone for years and maybe even before I was born but the bridges are still intact. You pass under this bridge coming off of Fairfax County Parkway onto Rte 1 in the Fort Belvoir section. I was looking on a map and the tracks that used to be there eventually meet up with the RF&P tracks(now CSX trackage). I want to know if anyone knows about this abandoned section of railroad.

You've already partially answered your own question. This was the trackage that served Fort Belvoir itself. I don't know exactly what year the spur was abandoned, but I would bet it had to have been in a year before RF&P became part of CSX.

The last Army railway equipment left the post in late summer 1993 and the track was subsequently pulled up. A GE 80-ton went to Letterkenny Army Depot, PA, where it remains today.

The bridge you mentioned is due to be demolished in order to widen Route 1 at some point in the future.

Thank you very much but I also have stumbled upon some new information. If any of you remember, a few years ago on the news they were trying to find away to direct freight trains that carried dangerous chemicals and material around without having to go through DC. I saw on some feasiblity study that the Ft.Belvoir military spur had the potential to serve as an alternate route and connect with a frequently used CSX branch in MD. Another study was to widen route one but to also extend the Metro's blue line from franconia/springfield station to the military base to give troops easy access to the base. However I like the first idea better because i am a natural train buff.

free2rtmey wrote:Thank you very much but I also have stumbled upon some new information. If any of you remember, a few years ago on the news they were trying to find away to direct freight trains that carried dangerous chemicals and material around without having to go through DC. I saw on some feasiblity study that the Ft.Belvoir military spur had the potential to serve as an alternate route and connect with a frequently used CSX branch in MD. Another study was to widen route one but to also extend the Metro's blue line from franconia/springfield station to the military base to give troops easy access to the base. However I like the first idea better because i am a natural train buff.

Even at the time of the study, the Fort Belvoir military spur was long out of service and actually was too close in to populated areas of the DC Metropolitan Area to be of value and to reduce safety concerns. The "frequently used" CSX branch you refer to is the Pope's Creek Branch that serves the PEPCO Morgantown power plant alongside US 301 on the Potomac River, located much further away and down from DC. A long, expensive rail bridge would have to been built across the Potomac and a long connector line built from the Dahlgren Naval Weapons Facility to rejoin CSX further west at Fredericksburg, or some other point on the CSX line. Bottom line, too expensive, and Homeland Security has likely implemented classified security procedures to assure continued and increased security of HAZMAT shipments on the existing RF&P/CSX line northward from Fredericksburg to DC.

In the current plan for Fort Belvoir's considerably-increased future usage for BRAC'd DOD activities, the extension of Metro's Blue Line and upgrading of Route One would be more realistic and practical for things as they are now planned for that area. Unfortunately, these won't happen for years, as there is no money available to fund them. So traffic gridlock will be the way of life for the time being in that area.

I recall the news articles about possibly rerouting HAZMAT shipments, but the Indian Head line is certainly no longer a possibility. Long out of service, its rail were lifted in January 2008 and the right-of-way is now a paved Charles County trail.

When the 2005 BRAC called for transferring more personnel into Fort Belvoir, there was a suggestion to extend either the Blue or Yellow line of Metro to the post, and there was an illustration in the Washington Post showing where each line would run. The proposed Blue Line extension would have run down the old Army right-of-way.

An article titled "New Use For An Old Right-of Way?" in the January 12, 2010 issue of the Fairfax County Times noted that “military leaders have slightly more than 90 days to submit plans for use of the $150 million in federal funds just approved for transportation improvements around Fort Belvoir… All parties are in agreement that the bulk of the funding should be used to widen Richmond Highway (U.S. Route 1), the gateway to the fort, to six lanes. However, other key details remain in flux, including the scope of the widening… Fairfax County officials are also very interested in improving transit access to Fort Belvoir. [U.S. Rep. James P.] Moran (D-Dist. 8) said a study of the possible reuse of an abandoned rail bed that connects Virginia Railway Express tracks to the fort could potentially be paid for with the new federal dollars.”

Interestingly enough, an employee at the post's civil engineering office told me in early 1993 that there was interest in extending VRE service down the line (the tracks were still intact at this point) as far as Route 1. At that location, the old warehouses next to the tracks on the west side of Route 1 would be demolished and replaced by a combination bus-rail terminal with a bus loop. Buses could come up Route 1 and deliver inbound commuters to the terminal in the morning and take them away in the evening. I asked about extending the line further into the post, since such a terminal would be a long walk from just about everything on Fort Belvoir, and he said no, that long-term plans called for the widening of Route 1, and that meant the rail bridge would go. As we know, no extension of either VRE or Metro service has ever taken place, the post railway tracks are long gone, and those old warehouses still stand. Since there's no money to put rails back down on the old post railway's right-of-way, I suspect the only thing we'll see there are more vines, trees and briars.

I remember this line from when my dad was stationed at Ft Belvoir back in the 70s. We walked the tracks from Ft Belvoir to the interchange at Newington. There used to be an old country store there called Pearson's. I remember seeing the GE 80 ton occasionally running on this line during the 1978-1981 time period. There was a derailing device on the tracks a short distance from the interchange switch.

Anyone know how often this line was used, what it was used for and what equipment they had other than the GE 80 ton?

Only GE 80-tons were used in the last decades of operation, and there were usually two 80-tons on site at any one time; however, the line was built during WW I and saw many different types of motive power over the years.

Before combat engineer training was consolidated at Fort Leonard Wood, MO, there were engineer units and training taking place at the post, and the railroad would handle inbound and outbound deployments of these units. The post also took deliveries of coal for the DC prison system's nearby facilities. When the engineer units and training departed the post and the Army ceased handling coal for the prison system, the railroad was left with little else.

I recall seeing several Army flatcars and a gondola car on post that were almost certainly scrapped there after operations ended. I also saw an Army boxcar coupled to the last GE 80-ton to depart the post as it was waiting for pick-up on the east side of Telegraph Road in August 1993. Where the boxcar may have gone, I have no idea.