page_title: Washington and Old Dominion Railroad
section_title: Bluemont Division, Alexandria-Bluemont line
hierarchical_section_title: Washington and Old Dominion Railroad / Bluemont Division, Alexandria-Bluemont line
caption_attribution_description: English: The Stone Bridge across the W&amp;OD Trail at Clarkes Gap, VA
context_page_description: The Washington and Old Dominion Railroad, the successor to the bankrupt Washington and Old Dominion Railway, was an intrastate short-line railroad located in Northern Virginia. Its oldest line extended from Alexandria on the Potomac River northwest to Bluemont at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains near Snickers Gap, not far from the boundary line between Virginia and West Virginia. The railroad's route largely paralleled the routes of the Potomac River and the present Virginia State Route 7.
  The line followed the winding course of Four Mile Run upstream from Alexandria through Arlington to Falls Church. At that point, the railroad was above the Fall Line and was able to follow a more direct northwesterly course in Virginia through Dunn Loring, Vienna, Sunset Hills, Herndon, Sterling, Ashburn, Leesburg, Paeonian Springs, Hamilton, Purcellville and Round Hill to its terminus at Bluemont, turning sharply to the west only after passing through Clarke's Gap in Catoctin Mountain west of Leesburg. A branch connected the line to Rosslyn.
context_section_description: Most of the Bluemont Division's passenger cars or trains ran on the W&OD Railway's Great Falls Division's line from Georgetown over the Aqueduct Bridge through Rosslyn to Thrifton Junction. From Thrifton Junction, the trains ran on the Bluemont Division's connecting line to Bluemont Junction, where they met other Bluemont Division passenger cars or trains that ran from Alexandria, following Four Mile Run in Arlington. Some of the Bluemont Division cars or trains then continued their trips through Falls Church, Vienna, Herndon, Sterling, Ashburn, Leesburg, Clarke's Gap and Purcellville to terminate in Bluemont, Virginia, at the base of the Blue Ridge Mountains, following a route that was similar to that of Virginia State Route 7.
  After the W&OD Railroad closed, the Southern Railway and its successor, the Norfolk Southern Railway, operated a spur between the Alexandria waterfront and a north-south route that traveled through Potomac Yard before the Yard closed in 1989. The spur formerly served trains traveling from the eastern end of the Bluemont Division to the Southern Railway's freight and passenger stations in old town Alexandria. As the Southern Railway owned and operated the spur and the stations, this section of track remained in operation after the W&OD closed. Railroad operations ended on the spur in 2012–2013 when GenOn Energy's Potomac River Generating Station and the Robinson Terminal's Oronoco Street warehouse closed.
  A paved trail in Alexandria's linear Mt. Jefferson Park has replaced part of the Bluemont Division's course through that city. NOVA Parks' 44.8 miles (72.1 km)-long W&OD Trail travels in the Washington & Old Dominion Railroad Regional Park within the Bluemont Division's former right-of-way from the Alexandria/Arlington boundary through Bluemont Junction to Purcellville. The section of the Bluemont Division between Purcellville and Bluemont has not become a part of any trail, as the W&OD Railroad abandoned this section in 1938, thirty years before the remainder of its line closed.
caption: Stone arch at Clarke's Gap, August 2008
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