Capital Traction Company

The Capital Traction Company was the smaller of the two major street railway companies in Washington, D.C. in the early 20th Century. It was formed through a merger of the Rock Creek Railway and the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company in 1895. The company ran streetcars from Georgetown; Capitol Hill; Chevy Chase, MD; the Armory and Mt. Pleasant. In 1933 it merged with the its major competitor the Washington Railway and Electric Company to form the Capital Transit Company.

In the mid-1890s there were numerous streetcar companies operating in the District. Congress tried to deal with this fractured transit system by requiring them to accept transfers, set standard pricing and by allowing them to use one another's track. But eventually it became clear that consolidation was the best solution.

On March 1, 1895, Congress authorized the Rock Creek Railway to purchase and merge with any connecting company, and to change its name to the Capital Traction Company. This merger took place with the Washington and Georgetown on September 21, 1895.

In that same year, Capital Traction began construction on a Waddy Wood-designed car barn in Georgetown to be called Union Station. Union Station was designed to serve four streetcar companies: The old Washington and Georgetown lines would use the ground floor on M Street NW while the Washington, Arlington and Falls Church and the projected Great Falls and Old Dominion were to come across the Potomac from Rosslyn entering the second and third floors respectively on steel trestles. The Metropolitan would use the roof. In reality, the Virginia companies never used it and the Metropolitan only sparingly so. The Washington and Great Falls took over the third floor. The station opened on May 27, 1897 and contained Washington's only cable loop.

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