This week on Georgetown Time Machine, I’m checking out another photo from the DC Historical Society. It was taken just west of the Old Aqueduct abutment.
While much of the scene is at least similar to what you’d see today, the obvious difference is that there’s a goddam freight train passing by.That’s because what we now know as the Capital Crescent Trail was for a long time a railroad spur known as the Georgetown Branch.
I’ve written about it many time before, but in case you’re new here, the train line ran from Silver Spring all the way down to where this photo was taken, and then onward to where the House of Sweden is now. It was a freight line, not a passenger one, and it was mostly used to bring coal to buildings like the West Heating Plant.
The tracks ran right down the middle of the road, as you can see from this striking shot:
(There are more great shots of this train line at this wonderful website).
The top photo was apparently taken in 1961. While they became increasingly infrequent, the last train rumbled away from Georgetown in 1985, i.e. the same year they were filming St. Elmo’s Fire up the hill. It’s wild to think the era of Brat Pack Georgetown overlapped with the last vestiges of industrial Georgetown.
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