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Rockville Walking Tour
Item 2 of 11

Rockville B&O Railroad Station

Introduction

Text-to-speech Audio

The Rockville Railroad Station on the Baltimore and Ohio railroad was a station built in 1873. It is built of red brick in the Victorian style. The station is one of the few picturesque country railroad stations not demolished, painted, or expanded. The construction of the station allowed for cheap and easy transport directly from Rockville to Washington, leading to the large population growth of Rockville. In 1981, with the construction of the Metro Red Line, the station was physically moved off the rail line, 50 meters south, and a new Rockville station for Amtrak trains was built. Currently, the former station is home to a law firm.

Images

Rockville station in its current position

Window, Property, Tree, Road surface

Station circa 1883.

Town, Photograph, White, Neighbourhood

Moving of station in 1981 to make way for WMATA red line.

Wood, Brown, Window, Property

Current day new Rockville station served by Amtrak and MARC trains.

Mode of transport, Daytime, Brown, Yellow

Backstory and Context

Text-to-speech Audio

The Rockville Railway Station was built in 1873 along the Metropolitain branch line of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It was one of several stops between Washington, D.C., and Point of Rocks, where the branch joined the mainline that bypassed Washington, D.C. and went direct west to Fredrick onwards. The Washington branch line built in 1830 connected Washington to Baltimore and the building of the Metropolitan branch gave Washington a direct connection to Ohio. According to the blog ggwash, the Washington Metropolitan branch combination was treated as the mainline and the old mainline was downgraded to a secondary line. The Metropolitan also connected suburbs like Kensington and Silver Spring to Washington. The building was designed by architect E. Francis Baldwin and features Eastlake detailing, including detailed woodwork on each gable. During the B&O's time of operation, 4 or 5 trains per day in each direction stopped at Rockville going to Washington or Fredrick.

The opening of the Rockville station had a dramatic impact on Rockville's population, more than 2 fold within 20 years, from 660 citizens in 1870 to over 1500 in 1890. When WMATA was building out Washington DC's metro network in the 70s, it was planned for the station to be demolished, however, with the lobbying of Peerless Rockville, a compromise was made to move the station off the tracks and 50 meters south to Church Street. The new Rockville metro station (West side) serves the Metro red line to Shady Grove and Glenmont, and the Rockville train station (east side) built in place of the B&O station serves the Amtrak Capital Limited train to Chicago and MARC commuter trains. MARC was created in 1984 with the combination of the Brunswick line (metropolitan), and two other lines, the Camden and Penn Line.

Sources

Kockritz, Justin. B&O Railroad Station, Peerless Rockville. October 2008. Accessed January 3rd 2021. https://www.peerlessrockville.org/historic-rockville/peerless-places-2/bo-railroad-station/

Rowlands, DW. How the Metropolitan Branch and the Brunswick Line shaped the region’s suburbs, Greater Greater Washington. August 23rd 2018. Accessed January 4th 2021. https://ggwash.org/view/68755/how-the-metropolitan-branch-and-the-brunswick-line-shaped-the-regions-suburbs

Image Sources(Click to expand)

Peerless Rockville

Peerless Rockville

Additional Information