Transit advocates have dusted off a 60-year-old proposal to add transit operations along the Washington & Old Dominion (W&OD) Regional Park.
The Northern Virginia Transportation Commission (NVTC) has received more than 60 requests in recent months to consider the concept, executive director Kate Mattice said at the body’s March 5 meeting.
Most of the requests urged NVTC to ask the Virginia Department of Rail and Public Transportation to consider the feasibility of a rail line along the W&OD Trail’s right-of-way from Purcellville to the East Falls Church Metro station.
Nearly all the communications supported the concept, but at least one opposed it, Mattice said.
The request drew the attention of Falls Church City Council member Justine Underhill, the city’s main representative to the NVTC board of directors.
“Is it something that’s on the table, to do a study? It is even feasible?” she said.
“We have not examined that,” Mattice replied.
Well, not recently.
The executive director noted that NVTC undertook a study — way back in 1965 — to consider the eventual conversion of what was then a still-operating freight railroad line to future transit use.
The NVTC board went on record supporting the proposal in July 1966, reaffirming its support in December 1966 and August 1967, according to a 1967 document that laid out potential costs and benefits.
Running a transit line through the heart of Fairfax and Arlington counties could cut commuting times in half, the 1967 report said. It also could provide a high-speed connection between Washington, D.C., with Dulles International Airport.
If funding became available and there was the regional will to move it forward, a transit line could be operational by the mid-1970s, the 1967 analysis suggested.
Doing so would not be cheap or quick, the analysts acknowledged 59 years ago:
“The railroad will have to be entirely rebuilt, double-tracked in the portion closest to Washington, have its grade crossings separated one by one, and ultimately be electrified. All-new stations and parking lots must be provided.”
In the end, the plan failed to materialize.
The Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, which owned the W&OD Railroad and the right-of-way, won permission from the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1968 to shut it down. The line’s right-of-way was then sold to Virginia Electric & Power Co. (today’s Dominion Energy) to maintain its power-transmission lines.
Dominion Energy continues to own that portion, but in the 1970s-80s sold off the railway line itself to the Northern Virginia Regional Park Authority (now NOVA Parks) for creation of the region’s first linear park.
The idea of a commuter rail line parallel to the W&OD Trail was revived in 2024 by local transit enthusiasts who formed the NOVA Transit Revitalization Advocacy Coalition (NOVA-TRAC), contending that it would reduce traffic and provide a faster option for those traveling into D.C. from Loudoun County than driving, among other benefits.
The Town of Hamilton in western Loudoun passed a resolution in February 2025 endorsing the possibility of a new study to examine the feasibility of adding rail in the W&OD corridor.
Rather than take any action at the March 5 meeting, NVTC board members directed Mattice to contact her counterpart at NOVA Parks, Justin Wilson, to learn more about the topic. Information would then be brought back to the NVTC board at a later time.
If a rail line does materialize adjacent to part or all of the trail, it would mark the first passenger service on the route since 1951, when the line converted to freight-only operations.
